News & Stories

An international and multidisciplinary research team led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) was recently granted a research fund of HK$91.85 million by the University Grants Committee (UGC). Under the leadership of Prof. Charles NG Wang-Wai (HKUST Associate Vice-President for Research and Development and CLP Holdings Professor of Sustainability), this project will deliver a comprehensive extreme weather and landslide warning system. This novel system will increase the forecast lead time of heavy rainfall from three to six hours, thereby giving the general public and responders more time to prepare for potential disasters.  

Getting a divorce is hard, but going through paperwork and court proceedings can leave a deeper scar. A team of HKUST’s Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) students, supervised by professors and alumnus, has developed a “robo-lawyer” that not only saves time and money, but also paves the way for wider application of artificial intelligence technologies in the legal profession. Hong Kong’s divorce rate in 2016 was more than double that in 1991. The rising demand for family mediation has been a mounting challenge for Albert SO, a CSE alumnus from HKUST, who chairs the Hong Kong Mediation and Arbitration Centre. Few divorcing couples actually realized that the high legal costs and procedural drag would take an emotional toll on themselves, says Albert. Many of them are unwilling or unable to sit down for a mediation that could take months or years, especially for cross-border couples.

By Prof. Ning Zhi, Associate Professor of Environment and Sustainability Marine emissions account for 40 percent of air pollution sources in Hong Kong - making them one of the city's most significant pollutant sources. Given the SAR's status as one of the busiest ports in the world, enforcing clean fuel laws is absolutely essential in our quest to clean up our air. Traditionally, policing high sulfur fuel usage is a time-consuming affair: checking ship logs, collecting samples from fuel tanks, taking them back to the lab and then conducting analyses. This process takes days and even weeks. By the time these measurements are complete, the ships are likely to be already far from Hong Kong. Regulators have been looking for a more efficient solution to detect and screen the vessels violating the fuel sulfur cap regulations.

The School of Business and Management of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST Business School) and ZhongAn Technologies International Group Ltd (ZA International) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) to open up a new stream of opportunities for faculty and students in the fields of Fintech and Insurtech. The HKUST Business School aspires to become a major intellectual powerhouse of Fintech in Asia and is undertaking a major Fintech research project funded by the Research Grants Council under its Theme-based Research Scheme. The project examines the impacts of Fintech on Hong Kong and looks into ways to contribute to the development of the city into a global Fintech hub.

By Mow Wai-ho, Associate Professor of Electronic and Computer Engineering, HKUST Compared with the mainland, Hong Kong seems to be lagging behind in adopting QR codes for financial transactions. However, innovators in Hong Kong are not standing still in developing the next generation of barcodes that can revolutionize the way we do business. For example, my research team is continuing to work on PiCode, a barcode variant that utilizes images instead of the black-and-white lines and blocks that comprise conventional barcodes and QR codes. We have spent almost five years researching picture- and video-embedded codes, and are now in the demonstration phase. Picture-embedded barcodes offer considerable potential in consumer marketing. Many people may find regular barcodes intrusive, and businesses have searched for ways to transmit data and information to consumers in a more pleasing format.

A joint research team of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and The South China Normal University (SCNU) has set a new record of photonic quantum memory efficiency, pushing quantum computation a step closer to reality. Like memories in computers, quantum memories are essential components for quantum computers – a new generation of data processors that obey quantum mechanics laws and can overcome the limitations of classical computers. They may push boundaries of fundamental science and help create new drugs, explain cosmological mysteries, or enhance accuracy of forecasts and optimization plans with their potent computational power. Quantum computers are expected to be much faster and more powerful than their traditional counterparts as information is calculated in qubits – which unlike the older units (bits) used in classical computers, can represent both 0 and 1 at the same time.  

Scientists from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have recently uncovered the mechanisms of how RNA polymerase II performs intrinsic cleavage reaction to proofread RNA transcriptions, shedding light on how mis-regulation of accurate transcription can lead to diseases including cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. The message of life is encoded in our genomic DNA through transcription of messenger RNAs and translation of proteins to perform cellular functions. To ensure accurate transcription – a process that transcribes genomic DNA into messenger RNA by adding nucleotides one by one like letters in the alphabet, an enzyme called RNA polymerase II would synthesize and proofread messenger RNA to remove any mis-incorporated nucleotides that do not match with the DNA template.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) will build a new kind of camera – using a new approach of quantum optics to detect previously undetectable signals from billions of light years away.  The camera is set to help solve unanswered questions in astrophysics and cosmology, such as how light originates and varies around the black hole, in the hope of deciphering information emitted from there.