News & Stories

Jointly organized by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Sino Group, the HKUST-SINO One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2026 (OMC) will hold its Grand Final on 12 October. This year’s competition attracted a record 390 teams from 24 countries and regions, including students from leading institutions such as the University of Oxford, the University of Pennsylvania, and the National University of Singapore. 15 finalist teams will compete for prizes worth more than HK$1 million.

Invaluable to modern society, refrigeration faces challenges from traditional vapor-compression systems, which are energy-intensive and employ refrigerants that exacerbate the greenhouse effect and damage the ozone layer. Addressing this, a research team from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has unveiled the world’s first zero-degradation elastocaloric cooling device. Powered by a fatigue-resistant, solid-state refrigerant, this innovation delivers durable and green cooling, maintaining its stable performance even over a stunning one million operational cycles. This breakthrough will usher in highly efficient eco-friendly cooling, driving progress towards sustainable global development.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), in collaboration with the Working Group on Developing the Low-altitude Economy under the HKSAR Government and the Greater Bay Area Low Altitude Economy Alliance, today hosted the forum "Future of Low Altitude Economy: An Inter-City Dialogue on Commercialization and Standardization".The forum brought together more than 300 representatives from government, academia, industry, and research organizations from Hong Kong, the Chinese Mainland, and overseas to explore opportunities and challenges in advancing the low-altitude economy (LAE). Discussions focused on commercialization, standardization, technological innovation, and cross-sector collaboration, with the shared goal of fostering a robust, sustainable, and globally connected LAE ecosystem.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) today held its orientation carnival, "Fire Up Your Year," today (September 1). Coinciding with the University's 35th anniversary, the event themed "Where Miracles Happen," brought together President Prof. Nancy IP, members of the University leadership, faculty, staff, and alumni to warmly welcome more than 8,000 new undergraduate and postgraduate students from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Chinese Mainland, and around the world to the HKUST community as they embark on an exciting new chapter in their academic journey.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has established the Research Laboratory for Advanced Energy Materials and Devices to revolutionize innovation in next-generation batteries, sustainable energy conversion, and materials science. The Laboratory will inject fresh momentum into Hong Kong and the nation's energy and green technology transformation and contribute to the transition towards a low-carbon future.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) nurtured startups showcased their innovations at the HICOOL 2026 Global Entrepreneur Summit and Entrepreneurship Competition and seized four prestigious accolades: the Overseas Group Championship, First Prize, Second Prize, and Third Prize. This achievement not only underscores HKUST's strong capabilities in deep-tech and cutting-edge innovation but also highlights the immense commercialization potential of its research breakthroughs to a global audience of industry leaders and investors. It further reinforces the University's leadership in innovation and technology, leveraging research excellence to accelerate industry advancement and generate meaningful societal impact.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a key driver of a new wave of scientific and technological innovation that is transforming industries, reshaping the way humans work at an unprecedented pace. As outlined in the Chief Executive's 2025 Policy Address, Hong Kong is actively advancing "AI+" development through the acceleration of AI industrialization, the wider adoption of AI across industries, and its deeper integration of AI into various sectors. These initiatives are designed to strengthen Hong Kong’s position as a global hub for AI innovation. Against this backdrop, developing AI-ready talent has become a crucial priority for enhancing the city's long-term competitiveness.

A research team from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed a novel AI framework, the Generalist–Specialist Collaboration (GSCo), which enables a generalist foundation model and specialist models to collaborate on disease diagnosis. GSCo outperforms both standalone models in tasks such as medical imaging, visual question answering, and radiology report generation, while significantly reducing development costs of medical models to adapt to new clinical tasks. This marks a meaningful step toward bringing AI medical models into everyday clinical workflows. The study, titled "Towards generalizable AI in medicine via Generalist–Specialist Collaboration," was published in the prestigious academic journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.