Artificial Intelligence

Lingnan University in Hong Kong has entered the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2026. In the latest published results, Lingnan ranked among the world’s top 301–350 out of 2,191 universities from 115 countries or territories, delivering a notable performance across several indicators. These include an impressive 47th place in International Outlook, recognising Lingnan’s achievement in fostering international diversity and collaborative research on a global scale.

With so many environmental issues arising, how can we even begin trying to solve them all? Perhaps, we can start by asking AI. This study highlights how AI can pinpoint viable action plans for these issues.

Identifying cracks is critical for health monitoring of civil infrastructure. To enhance inspection efficiency, the proposed autonomous crack segmentation and exploration system enables the agent to navigate itself without human operation, and the agent successfully captures over 85% of cracks in the training dataset and achieves 82% crack coverage in the testing dataset. In terms of computational resources, proposed system enhances efficiency by 64% compared to conventional exhaustive search methods, demonstrating strong potential for practical deployment on UAVs and other edge devices.

Traffic accidents and last-minute service requests often disrupt logistics efficiency. Dr Tong Hao, Postdoctoral Fellow of the Division of Artificial Intelligence of the School of Data Science at Lingnan University, has developed an Intelligent Vehicle Routing Optimisation System capable of dynamically simulating traffic conditions and task variations to show the most efficient routes for vehicle fleets when faced with sudden congestion or additional deliveries, so as to maximise operational efficiency. His dissertation Advancing optimization and evaluation for dynamic capacitated arc routing problems is the only research project worldwide to receive the 2026 IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award.

Having a good leader–follower relationship matters, but only when people spontaneously choose their roles

The University of Osaka researchers developed a reinforcement learning framework that lets dialogue systems efficiently learn new words while asking fewer questions. This approach enhances user experience and enables future systems to naturally acquire family-specific nicknames and expressions, becoming more familiar companions in everyday life.

- Professor Kyung-Joon Park’s team at DGIST develops a Physical AI-based multi-robot autonomous navigation system inspired by how social issues spread and are forgotten. - Productivity 18%↑, Travel Time 30%↓ in logistics centers and smart factories – immense potential for industrial use.

Lightweight and high-performance framework for remote sensing object detection

Lingnan University has achieved another remarkable milestone in the 2025 edition of the World’s Top 2% Scientists list, published by Stanford University. This year, a total of 43 Lingnan scholars were named in the list, representing an increase of about 50 per cent compared with last year’s 29. Among them, 19 scholars were ranked among the global top 100 in their respective disciplines, underscoring the international recognition of Lingnan’s research excellence and its rising global impact.

Leading scholar in artificial intelligence (AI) Prof Sam Kwong Tak-wu, Associate Vice-President (Strategic Research), Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and J.K. Lee Chair Professor of Computational Intelligence at Lingnan University, has been honoured with the 2026 IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation Outstanding Paper Award for his co-authored paper Learning-Aided Evolution for Optimization. It is the sole paper to receive this award this year, underscoring its importance in the fields of evolutionary computation and AI.

Lingnan University held its Research and Knowledge Transfer Excellence Awards Presentation Ceremony 2025 yesterday, 17 September, honouring 55 faculty members for their outstanding contributions to academic research and knowledge transfer, advancing community well-being and societal progress during the past academic year. The awards included the Outstanding Researcher Award, the Early Career Researcher Award, and the Research & Knowledge Transfer Fund Award, recognising faculty members for their innovative scholarship and impactful initiatives that elevate Lingnan’s global research presence.

Lingnan University President and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science, Prof S. Joe Qin, welcomed the 2025 Policy Address delivered by Chief Executive, Mr John Lee, highlighting a series of education-related policy initiatives as follows:

Perimetry (visual field testing) quantifies a patient’s retinal sensitivity to light and clarifies a deviation from normal retinal sensitivity. Visual field tests generally require high patient concentration, which can be exhausted. We constructed a framework for deep reinforcement learning to train ViFT (Visual Field Transformer), which controls all processes of visual field testing. ViFT achieves the same or higher accuracy than the state-of-the-art strategies, with less than half the test time of the state-of-the-art strategies.

Taiwan Innotech Expo (TIE) 2025 will return from October 16–18 at Taipei World Trade Center, Hall 1, uniting government, academia, and industry under the theme “Cross-Domain AI Innovation: Driving the Future with Intelligence.” The event will feature 450 exhibitors presenting nearly 1,100 patented technologies, highlighting Taiwan’s role as a key driver of global innovation.

Self-healing hydrogel, Cool crawler, AI and world's longest crop experiment & Freeze-framing cells. Plus how media interest helps engineers and society. Read all in the latest Editor's Choice

Combining multiple sensory inputs has been a big hurdle for developing physical AI robots. Recent research at Tohoku University solves this problem using a brand new approach.

The School of Graduate Studies (GS) of Lingnan University in Hong Kong hosted the “Empower Your Future” Lingnan Postgraduate Orientation 2025 today, 28 August, welcoming about 3,600 new postgraduate students for the 2025/26 academic year, the highest number ever recorded. The cohort includes students from the Hong Kong SAR, Macau, Mainland China, Canada, France, Portugal, Switzerland, the US, Vanuatu, Ghana, and Cameroon enrolled in taught master’s, doctoral, and MPhil/PhD programmes.

SUTD researchers have developed a generative urban model that upends the notion that walkable neighbourhoods must come at the expense of road access, offering a new way to balance mobility and liveability.

A new study highlights how machine learning can effectively identify key factors influencing rice yield for over five decades, emphasizing the importance of tailored management practices and varietal replacement as a response to climate change.

On 19 August, World Humanitarian Day, Lingnan University announced the signing of an Agreement of Cooperation with the United Nations University (UNU) to establish the UNU Hub on Humanitarian Innovation and Technology at Lingnan University (UNU Hub at Lingnan University), making it the first higher education institution in Asia to set up a UNU Hub. The Hub is scheduled to open officially in October 2025 and will have an annual operating budget of over HK$8 million. Its Humanitarian Innovation and Technology Laboratory (HIT Lab) will spearhead research and design initiatives, education and training programmes, and international collaborations, and improve living conditions in developing countries and regions of the Global South by leveraging innovative and cutting-edge technologies. Scholarships will be awarded to encourage local youth to fulfil their ambitions through knowledge and innovation.

Sensitive region detection for improved non-invasive cattle monitoring

Lingnan University's science and innovation teams have achieved outstanding results at the 11th Silicon Valley International Invention Festival 2025 (SVIIF) in their first-ever participation. All 13 participating projects, covering areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), smart manufacturing, and intelligent transportation, won awards, including 8 gold and 5 silver medals. One of the projects, the AI-based Fencing Training and Assessment System, led by Prof Sam Kwong Tak-wu, Associate Vice-President (Strategic Research), also received a special award ⸺ Prize of the International Federation of Inventors’ Association (IFIA), making Lingnan the Hong Kong higher education institution that won the highest number of total awards and gold medals at this year’s festival.

From a seed-inspired design to a 26-minute flight time on a single rotor, a new monocopter developed by SUTD researchers marks a 10-year journey towards redefining how efficient small flying robots can be.

Scientists found three language-model chatbots — even with advanced prompt‐engineering tricks — often give suboptimal guidance across stroke prevention, diagnosis, treatment and recovery, highlighting the need for human oversight to ensure appropriateness and safety.

The Ateneo de Manila University’s Business Insights Laboratory for Development (BUILD) is looking at ways for artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance human labor in small businesses, which make up the bulk of the Philippine economy.

- DGIST research team led by Yoonhee Lee and Gyogwon Koo enhances lung cancer diagnostic accuracy by combining exosome physical properties with AI. - The research also proposes the potential for rapid and precise liquid biopsy-based lung cancer diagnosis without fluorescent labeling.

Using AI to decode system diagrams and simulate nine policy scenarios for better material reuse and resource efficiency.

Researchers at The University of Osaka developed a deep learning model for rapid building damage assessment after floods using satellite imagery. This research establishes the first systematic benchmark for this task and introduces a novel semi-supervised learning method achieving 74% of fully supervised performance with just 10% of the labeled data. A new, lightweight deep learning model named Simple Prior Attention Disaster Assessment Net or SPADANet significantly reduces missed damaged buildings, improving recall by over 9% compared to existing models. This work provides crucial design principles for future AI disaster response, enabling faster and more efficient life-saving operations.

To promote equality in education and allow aspiring creators to learn about film production without physical equipment, a team from the Department of Digital Arts and Creative Industries at Lingnan University has spent two years developing CineSim, the world’s first cinematography simulation education software. CineSim enables hands-on filmmaking skills to be learnt easily using computer simulation and eliminating the need for professional studios and camera equipment. The project was supported by a subsidy of approximately HKD $800,000 from the University Grants Council (UGC), and is now freely available to all Lingnan staff and students. The team will market the software to secondary schools and the film production industry to encourage Hong Kong’s creative talents. In mid-June, the full version of CineSim was officially launched on Steam, one of the world’s largest digital game distribution platforms for PC gaming, a significant move into the international market.

Researchers at The University of Osaka have developed a novel framework for measuring occupancy in open-plan offices with unprecedented precision. This innovative system uses computer vision and AI to analyze occupancy at a micro-scale level, focusing on specific functional zones within the office. This addresses a significant gap in current occupancy tracking methods, which typically only provide macro-level data and struggle to capture detailed usage patterns within shared spaces.