In the Media

In the first half of 2024, fatal industrial accidents in Hong Kong increased compared to the previous year. Many of these accidents occur in the construction and manufacturing sectors, often involving hazardous materials and falling objects. Critics argue that the pressure to meet deadlines leads companies to overlook essential safety measures, and that enhancing safety protocols could prevent most accidents.

In the digital age, traditional public services face significant challenges, including inefficiency and outdated information. Large language models (LLMs), while impressive, struggle with "hallucinations" (generating fluent but incorrect responses) and a lack of domain-specific data, making them inadequate for high-accuracy demands. To address these issues, the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) framework has emerged as a transformative solution, offering greater accuracy and efficiency.

Prof. Shipeng Yan and Ms. Runjia Zhang used Tencent’s “AI Corpus for good” and Ant Group’s “Blue Vest social good campaign” as case studies for top digital companies' practices in helping the elderly. They advocate for digital companies to understand the needs of the elderly through social cooperation and emphasize the importance of understanding their psychological characteristics to design products with emotional connection. At the same time, through education and social services, improve their digital literacy and awareness of fraud prevention. Let our seniors enjoy the convenience brought by technology safely and confidently!

Prof. Heiwai Tang, Associate Dean of HKU Business School and Director of the Asia Global Institute, pointed out that many mainland enterprises have sought to raise funds and "go overseas" through Hong Kong in response to the mainland's economic transformation and recent growth slowdown. He emphasised, "Mainland companies adopt a dual-headquarters concept, with many R&D and manufacturing headquarters in the Greater Bay Area, and their foreign trade and fundraising operations based in Hong Kong. This is because Hong Kong's international financial market can facilitate their business expansion."

Prof. Heiwai Tang, Associate Dean of HKU Business School and Director of the Asia Global Institute, commented in a recent media interview that “Hong Kong does not have a solid industrial base, which hinders technology commercialisation.” However, he stressed that creating market demand for technology is vital. Hong Kong must leverage the talent and capital resources, as well as manufacturing and technology capacity in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, to accelerate economies of scale in technology commercialisation. “When there are more strategic enterprises established here, they create high-end technology positions for homegrown and overseas talent in basic science and applied science, thus fostering technology commercialization,” said Prof. Tang.

Hong Kong's economy is facing a series of significant challenges, including an ongoing fiscal deficit, not being able to fully leverage the composite advantages of the Greater Bay Area, a shrinking middle class, and a drain of international talent.

港大經管學院副院長（對外事務）鄧希煒教授表示，由於地緣政治因素，加上內地本土市場過度競爭，不少當地龍頭企業希望「出海」開拓市場。他舉例，近期來港掛牌的美的集團（00300）及順豐（06936）在內地上市多年，擇此時機在港掛牌，希望作全球部署。他直言，若只在上海或北京設置總部，內地資本管制下，資金較難投資外地，「幾十億資金難以到馬來西亞或越南」；以香港作為地區總部，就可集資及投資外地市場，擴展商業版圖。

Over the past decade, two technologies have been at the forefront of the digital revolution. The first is AI, which has seen global adoption, while the latter is the more contentious Web3, a decentralized blockchain protocol. This article will primarily focus on the latter.

What's the carbon footprint cost of AI to our planet? The cost is heavy. It's estimated that the training process of ChatGPT-4 has led to over 1,000 tons of CO² emissions. By 2030, it is projected that the AI industry will account for 3.5% of global carbon emissions.