News & Stories

A research team at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has analyzed 40 years of data covering around 1,500 tropical cyclones and discovered that average rain rates surge by more than 20% in the 60 hours before landfall. The study is also the first to clearly identify the physical mechanisms behind this increase, showing that rising humidity over coastal areas and enhanced land-sea frictional contrasts strengthen convection, intensifying rainfall ahead of landfall. The results provide valuable insights for improving coastal disaster preparedness and early‑warning systems.

A research team from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed GrainBot, an AI-enabled toolkit that automatically extracts and quantifies multiple microstructural features from microscopy images. Designed to meet the growing need for data-driven and autonomous research workflows in materials science, the tool provides a systematic method for converting complex image information into quantitative data, thereby accelerating the discovery and development of next-generation materials.

Researchers at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have made a major breakthrough in producing perovskite solar cells. They developed a multi-source co-evaporation recipe that markedly enhances the crystal quality of vacuum-deposited perovskite films. The advance brings all vacuum-deposited single-junction perovskite cells as well as perovskite-on-silicon tandem solar cells closer to scalable production. This breakthrough has been reported in Nature Materials, in a paper entitled “Crystal-facet-directed all-vacuum-deposited perovskite solar cells”. 

Researchers at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have achieved a breakthrough in calcium-ion battery (CIB) technology, which could transform energy storage solutions in everyday life. Utilizing quasi-solid-state electrolytes (QSSEs), these innovative CIBs promise to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of energy storage, impacting a wide range of applications from renewable energy systems to electric vehicles. The findings are published in the international journal Advanced Science titled “High-Performance Quasi-Solid-State Calcium-Ion Batteries from Redox-Active Covalent Organic Framework Electrolytes”.

A research team led by Prof. Kenward VONG, Assistant Professor from the Department of Chemistry at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has recently achieved a significant breakthrough by bioengineering a new type of glycan-targeting system known as “lectin-directed protein aggregation therapy (LPAT)”. Using this technology, they developed a therapy capable of preventing the onset and growth of metastatic breast cancers in mouse models.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Intel Corporation (Intel) announced the establishment of the HKUST-Intel Joint Laboratory (Joint Lab). At the heart of the project is a three-year research program that will explore high-efficiency near-memory computing (NMC) architectures for addressing challenges in the performance and energy efficiency of artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Through innovations in software-hardware co-design, the collaboration aims to provide key insights into the future development of intelligent devices and sustainable AI systems.The signatories were Prof. Tim Kwan-Ting CHENG, Vice-President for Research and Development of HKUST, and Mr. SONG Jiqiang, Director of Intel Labs China. Prof. GUO Yike, Provost of HKUST; Mr. WANG Zhicong, Chairman of Intel China, and Ms. Gabriela Cruz THOMPSON, Senior Director of University Research and Collaboration, Intel witnessed the agreement.

A research team at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed an innovative urban food waste management framework by analyzing food waste data from 29 large cities worldwide, including Hong Kong, Beijing, and New York. The study shows that in cities with higher food waste moisture loads, such as Hong Kong, grinding food waste and diverting it into the sewage system is more effective than relying solely on landfilling. This approach can reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by about 47% and lower total waste-management costs by about 11%. The research provides a new, quantitative basis for shaping food waste management strategies in cities around the globe.

Researchers at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) School of Engineering have achieved a major breakthrough in computational neural engineering. They have developed a novel reinforcement learning-based generative model to predict neural signals, creating an artificial information pathway that effectively bypasses damaged brain areas. This groundbreaking research opens up new possibilities for neural rehabilitation in patients suffering from motor or cognitive impairments caused by conditions such as stroke or spinal cord injury. Their study, titled “A generative spike prediction model using behavioral reinforcement for re-establishing neural functional connectivity”, has been published in the prestigious journal Nature Computational Science.