Computer Science

Prof Song Yongduan, Dean of the School of Data Science and Henry Y. W. Fong Chair Professor of Industrial Data Science at Lingnan University, attended the induction ceremony for International Members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) in Beijing on 9 July, where he officially received his member plaque. The professor is one of five scientists with Hong Kong affiliations among the recently elected International Members of the CAE.

- Prof. Young-Sik Kim's research team develops BREW, a block-based verification technique that independently verifies segmented text blocks - Detects AI-generated text even after word substitutions and paraphrasing, reducing the false positive rate for human-written text to 2% - A core AI forensic technology for preventing fake news, accepted to the prestigious International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)

Prof Leng Mingming, Dean of the Faculty of Business and Chair Professor of Operations and Risk Management of Lingnan University, has been invited to join the Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS) Board of Governors. As the first Chinese recipient of BGS’s 2026 Dean of the Year, Prof Leng continues to elevate Lingnan’s global leadership in business education.

With Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) results slated for release on 15 July, Lingnan University has introduced elite programmes, flexible admission arrangements, and competitive scholarships to support candidates planning their higher education. Initiatives include the inauguration of the inaugural Samuel C.C. Ting Elite Class (CCT Class), named after Nobel Prize-winning physicist Prof Samuel C.C. Ting, which chooses the best undergraduate University Entrance Scholarship students for this comprehensive learning opportunity. The new flexible admission scheme for the upcoming academic year will allow candidates who underperform in one core subject to still be considered for admission after a detailed assessment.

Jointly organised by Lingnan University and Yuanpei College of Peking University (PKU), the onsite seven-day intensive training camp (held from 2 to 8 July 2026) amid the third Lingnan-Yuanpei STEM Summer Academy concluded on the Lingnan University campus, showcasing how the next generation of Beijing-Hong Kong talents seamlessly blends cutting-edge scientific innovation with a profound humanistic spirit, and empowering student entrepreneurs to transform creative ideas into socially responsible and real-world business solutions.

An AI assistant for high-entropy alloy (HEA) electrocatalysis named ChatHEA provided a helping hand not just to extract data from the literature, but provide suggestions for promising catalysts, design experiments, and analyze data.

Researchers from the University of Osaka found that the human brain represents social relationships learned through drama viewing, especially antagonistic ties. Participants watched six episodes of SUITS and underwent fMRI scans before and after viewing. Brain activity patterns after viewing reflected rivalries and conflicts among characters, particularly in regions involved in social cognition. The findings suggest that negative relationships help structure the brain’s internal social maps.

The eight-member Philippine national team secured a historic tie for 6th place versus over a hundred of the best secondary school students from across 18 countries.

To mark the 29th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), Lingnan University today, 1 July, organised a seminar entitled “The Present and Future of Liberal Arts Education through the Lens of Lingnan History” at Yuanzhi Business School in Guangzhou. Bringing together distinguished scholars and experts, the seminar explored the close educational and cultural ties between Guangzhou and Hong Kong, as well as the value of preserving and advancing liberal arts education in the digital era. In the evening, Canton Tower illuminated a congratulatory display celebrating Lingnan’s achievement of retaining the world’s No. 1 position in SDG 4: Quality Education in the Times Higher Education (THE) Sustainability Impact Ratings 2026, screening the achievements of Hong Kong’s higher education sector to communities across the Greater Bay Area.

Black-box optimization, particularly Bayesian optimization, is a practical approach for weather-intervention design, achieving meaningful rainfall reduction even under a very limited budget of expensive weather simulations, finding effective actions with only a small number of trials.

Catalysts play a vital role in the chemical reactions used to produce fertilizers, fuels, pharmaceuticals, and hydrogen, to name a few. AI-driven catalyst discovery is revolutionizing the field of materials science. But AI is only as reliable as the data it learns from. Therefore, researchers from Tohoku University have introduced an AI-powered digital catalysis platform that serves as a one-stop source for experimental data, theoretical calculations, and scientific literature.

The School of Graduate Studies (GS) at Lingnan University launched the Postgraduate Summer School 2026. This year's programme focuses on interdisciplinary methodological approaches, including the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and innovative mixed method designs. Lingnan is providing scholarship for each of the 18 outstanding postgraduate students, which includes sending them to the University of Oxford for an intensive UK session to further expand their horizons.

Lingnan University has achieved another historic milestone in the newly released Times Higher Education (THE) Sustainability Impact Ratings 2026. Its overall ranking surged from the 101st - 200th band last year to 63rd place globally—breaking into the top 100 for the first time, and coming third of the Hong Kong SAR’s eight UGC-funded universities. Lingnan University has achieved another historic milestone in the newly released Times Higher Education (THE) Sustainability Impact Ratings 2026. Its overall ranking surged from the 101st - 200th band last year to 63rd place globally—breaking into the top 100 for the first time, and coming third of the Hong Kong SAR’s eight UGC-funded universities. Seven Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were classed in the top 100 globally, more than doubling last year’s achievements. “SDG 4: Quality Education” has retained its position as number one worldwide, “SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities” has risen sharply from last year’s 101st - 200th band to 11th globally, “SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth” ranked 27th globally, and “SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals” came 55th globally.

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Lingnan University has achieved a major advancement in the latest Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2027, rising 120 places to 581st globally, its biggest jump in recent years. Lingnan recorded an outstanding performance across several key indicators, achieving a full score for International Faculty, ranking 34th worldwide, alongside a highly competitive result for International Students, placing at 76th worldwide. The University also achieved a significant rise of 211 places in Sustainability and climbed 64 places in Academic Reputation.

South-facing green walls help lower temperatures in indoor and outdoor environments

The 2nd Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Higher Education Innovation Symposium was successfully held at Shenzhen University from 13 to 14 June 2026. Under the theme "Higher Education Innovation and Greater Bay Area Development", the event was co-organised by the Guangdong Higher Education Society, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau University Alliance, and the Macao Association for Higher Education Development, and hosted by Shenzhen University. University administrators, experts, and scholars from Guangdong, Hong Kong SAR, and Macau SAR gathered to explore new pathways for innovative development in higher education, implementing key national deployments regarding higher education innovation and Greater Bay Area construction under the 15th Five-Year Plan.

Researchers from The University of Osaka developed a computational imaging method that combines coded-aperture optics with diffusion-model-based artificial intelligence to recover both depth and sharp color images from a single photograph. The approach improves robustness across imaging conditions while reducing reconstruction errors commonly seen in existing methods.

Researchers from The University of Osaka, SEC, and Juntendo University have developed quantum multi-programming auto mode, a function that automatically runs quantum programs from different users in parallel. Implemented in OQTOPUS and launched on QIQB’s quantum computer cloud service, the system reduces idle qubit resources, improves throughput, and may help ease congestion in quantum cloud computing.

In the context of global decarbonization, reducing energy consumption in the building sector is an urgent issue. We have developed a next-generation building energy evaluation model that combines rule-based symbolic AI computing with VR technology. This model enables real-time visualization and simultaneous evaluation of the energy-saving effects and indoor thermal comfort during the design stage of a Zero-Energy Building. This approach will have a wide range of applications in the design of next-generation smart buildings.

On 19 May 2026, a delegation led by Prof Wei Zhiqiang, President of Qingdao University, visited Lingnan University, and was warmly received by Prof S. Joe Qin, President and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science at Lingnan University, and other University representatives. Prof Qin and Prof Wei signed a university-level Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) witnessed by representatives from both institutions to further coordinate development and reinforce collaboration between higher education institutions in Shandong and the Hong Kong SAR.

The Ateneo-backed Team Philippines ranked third among national AI Olympiad teams, showcasing young Filipino talent worldwide.

Researchers have developed a new way to generate realistic synthetic training data for agricultural robots by recreating tomato cultivation environments in a virtual world. The approach could help overcome one of the biggest barriers in agricultural robotics: the time and labor required to collect and manually label real-world data under challenging greenhouse conditions such as changing lighting, dense foliage, and fruit occlusion.

Lingnan University announced that its Teaching and Learning Centre has been renamed the Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITAL). This restructuring continues to support Lingnan University’s transformation into a leading liberal arts research university comprehensive in arts and sciences in the digital era, aligning with the University’s development and with the educational direction of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People’s Republic of China.

The Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council Limited (DSSSC) and Lingnan University officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 19th May 2026. The two parties announced they will work together to provide systematic advancement support for non-local students in Direct Subsidy Scheme schools. This collaboration marks Lingnan as the sixth local university to sign an MoU with the DSSSC, showcasing the DSSSC’s fruitful achievements in driving close cooperation with local tertiary institutions. By establishing strategic admission channels and comprehensive transitional support, both parties aim to actively support and promote the government's "Study in Hong Kong" brand, jointly nurturing outstanding talents and enhancing Hong Kong's attractiveness as an international education hub.

Combined extreme climate events are likely to become more common in the future if carbon emissions continue to rise, a paper in Nature suggests.

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With the rapid growth of Hong Kong’s logistics and delivery services, frontline movers and delivery workers have to cope with physically demanding labour over long periods of time. The United Nations University Hub on Humanitarian Innovation and Technology at Lingnan University (UNU Hub at Lingnan University), the first UNU Hub in Asia and jointly established by Lingnan University and the United Nations University (UNU), recently developed the “IntuCREW – Intelligent Power Assist System”, an AI-powered smart trolley solution that upgrades conventional handcarts into intelligent, power-assisted transport platforms. The system can reduce the pushing effort required to move loads of about 200 kilograms by up to 90 per cent, a force comparable to pushing a 20-kilogram load, significantly easing the physical strain on logistics and delivery workers.

Researchers from The University of Osaka, Kyushu University, and the University of Victoria have developed MV-SZZ, a new method that accurately identifies defect-inducing software commits. By combining detailed code tracking with a majority voting system, the approach reduces false positives and outperforms existing techniques. This improvement could help developers debug software more efficiently and build more reliable systems.

The evolution of higher education in the digital era has attracted global attention, and Prof S. Joe Qin, President and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science at Lingnan University, recently published a paper titled “AI for education: The digital transformation of a liberal arts institution – implementation at Lingnan University” in a leading international journal Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence. The paper’s in-depth analysis of the role artificial intelligence (AI) plays in education uses Lingnan as a case study to examine the success of its pilot initiatives.