Artificial Intelligence

Lingnan University, in partnership with Times Higher Education (THE), launched Digital Universities Asia 2025 on 8 July at its Tuen Mun campus. Held over two days, 8-9 July, the summit was themed “Powering social innovation with digital transformation”, and brought together more than 300 leading scholars, industry leaders, and policy experts from over 90 universities and 140 organisations worldwide. Participants looked at how emerging technologies, and particularly artificial intelligence (AI), can transform teaching and learning, and promote sustainability and social progress.

Researchers from The University of Osaka have developed a method to visualize and reconstruct individual urban plants in different seasons using AI and street view images. The novel Seasonal Species-Specific Plant View Index allows urban designers to enhance the ecological sustainability and the well-being of city dwellers by incorporating diverse plant configurations, colors, and seasonality into current and future urban green spaces.

Lingnan University in Hong Kong welcomes the Audit Report by the Quality Assurance Council (QAC) of the University Grants Committee (UGC) today, 27 June. The Audit Panel praises Lingnan’s robust governance and quality management systems for managing academic standards and academic quality, and commends their proactive approach to digital innovation as reflected in the Strategic Plan since the appointment of the President, Prof S. Joe Qin. A typical example of this is the School of Data Science (SDS), which opened in May 2024 to develop teaching and research in related areas.

Lifesaving deep learning model developed using standard radiographs

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Bringing top Korean and foreign scholars and companies together to present a roadmap for next-generation AI technology

University of the Philippines – Diliman researchers tested various artificial intelligence prediction models to determine the antimicrobial resistance of E. coli using genetic data and laboratory test results from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database.

To further expand collaboration with top-tier Mainland universities, a delegation led by the members of the Council and senior management of Lingnan University visited Beijing from 27 to 29 May for meetings with the Ministry of Education and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and also visited Tsinghua University and Peking University to foster new partnerships in higher education.

Duke-NUS Medical School’s Class of 2025 graduates 121 medical and doctoral students, including MDs, MD-PhDs, PhDs, and masters’ degrees; Landmark first batch of Masters in Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality graduates, unique to Southeast Asia; Inaugural graduates from conditional admissions pathways with National University of Singapore and Singapore University of Technology and Design; 41% of MD and MD-PhD graduates made bold mid-career shifts from fields such as law, PR, accounting and mental health support

- DGIST research team led by Professor Kyungjoon Park achieves 96% glass wall detection accuracy without using additional sensors, reducing hardware costs by 90% - Smart algorithm negates the need for expensive sensors: PINMAP software replaces hardware!

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Researchers from The University of Osaka have revealed that vision transformers can develop gaze patterns similar to humans, learning to prioritize faces without ever being taught what a face is. The findings suggest that self-supervised ViTs may serve as a practical tool in computer vision and a theoretical model for studying human visual processing. The research underscores the potential of biologically inspired AI systems to uncover the mechanisms of human cognition.

Prof Sam Kwong Tak-wu, Associate Vice-President (Strategic Research), Acting Dean of the School of Data Science, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and J.K. Lee Chair Professor of Computational Intelligence at Lingnan University, has been elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE)—one of the highest honours in the engineering field. This is formal recognition of his significant contribution to global engineering and his commitment to scientific knowledge and innovative techniques to develop effective solutions for the betterment of society, the environment, and the economy. This year, 57 new Fellows were elected into the CAE, including 50 new Fellows and seven new International Fellows. Prof Kwong is the only scholar from Hong Kong SAR who was elected as a CAE Fellow this year.

Researchers develop energy-efficient spintronic devices with 11 memory states for next-generation neuromorphic computing.

With the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and increasing environmental challenges, global catastrophic risks have gone beyond traditional natural disasters to raise controversial ethical issues. In view of this, the Hong Kong Catastrophic Risk Centre (HKCRC) of Lingnan University has introduced a new, free, online bilingual self-learning course on Ethics and Global Catastrophic Risks, taught by international authorities in philosophy and ethics. Designed to help people understand and cope with the complex landscape of global disaster risks through eight modules, the new programme, launched in late February this year, incorporates in-depth, real-life examples in AI, the environment, and the sciences, and has already attracted more than 8,000 participants from Mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, South Asia, the US, and Europe. It is now open to the public at no charge.

- Professor Hyuk-jun Kwon’s team at DGIST has developed a high-performance artificial olfactory platform that mimics the human nose to identify a wide range of scents - A simple laser-based process enables scent-sensitive sensors ... AI-powered scent analysis is expected to impact healthcare, cosmetics, and environmental monitoring

Researchers at Tohoku University have developed a data-driven AI framework that gives scientists a head start by suggesting ideal candidate materials.

The world is paying attention to the impact of the trade war on various industries, and Lingnan University recently published a report titled "Data-Driven Job Search: Big Data Series Report on Hong Kong's Employment Market", analysing the employment risks and potential challenges in Hong Kong's labour market. This study used Artificial Intelligence (AI) models to examine more than 140,000 job advertisements in Hong Kong, suggesting that over 40 per cent of job vacancies are in traditional service sectors such as import-export, wholesale and retail, which are vulnerable to external environmental factors. While the strong trend of gig work in the retail industry accounts for approximately 20 per cent of positions, there is little demand for advanced technologies like AI, with less than two per cent of vacancies requiring such skills. The research team proposes that the government should assist workers in traditional service industries with their transitions, and provide targeted cross-industry skills training to improve employment competitiveness in the context of the present trade war economy.

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The Expert Report on the Fifth National Assessment Report on Climate Change Hong Kong and Macao Special Report, organised by the Administrative Center for China’s Agenda 21 (ACCA21) and co-hosted by Lingnan University, was held on Lingnan campus on April 26. Attendees included Vice President Lan Yujie of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); Deputy Director Zhang Yongtao of ACCA21; Deputy Director Yan Jinding of the National High-tech R&D of NSFC; President and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science Prof S. Joe Qin; Vice-President & Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic Development) of The University of Hong Kong (HKU) Prof Gong Peng, Associate Provost (Teaching and Learning) of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) Prof Jimmy Fung, as well as representatives from relevant departments and experts from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao.

Meta-analysis of medical research with LLMs reveals diagnostic accuracy

To further strengthen Lingnan University’s global academic network, Prof S. Joe Qin, President and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science of Lingnan University; Prof Bradley R. Barnes, Interim Associate Vice-President (Global Affairs) cum Director of Global Education; and Prof Li Jia, Associate Professor of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, visited several well-known universities in the UK respectively. The itinerary in early April, included Imperial College London, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the University of Sheffield, Queen Mary University of London, the University of York, the University of Surrey, Brunel University of London, the University of Kent and the University of Westminster. Several meetings took place with fruitful discussions, surrounding academic collaboration with these potential international partners.

Autonomous driving algorithm for robot using lidar shows promise with high-bed cultivation methods

New AI model explains the basis for its decisions and the intention behind actions

Lingnan University has achieved a historic milestone at the 50th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva, winning a record-breaking number of five awards. A total of six groundbreaking inventions from Lingnan were showcased at the exhibition, earning one Gold Medal with Congratulations of the Jury―the first time the University has achieved this honour―along with two Silver Medals and two Bronze Medals, making the number of Lingnan University's participating and winning projects a record high.

Lingnan University held the conferment ceremony for the Lingnan University Institute for Advanced Study (LUIAS) today, 11 April, welcoming three leading international scholars―Prof Chen Shiyi , President of the Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, and Prof Yang Qiang, Professor Emeritus of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), who were made Lingnan Fellows, and the title of Senior Lingnan Scholar was conferred on Prof Zhou Dingxuan, Professor and Head of the School of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Sydney—to recognise their important contributions to academic achievements.

- DGIST Professor Kyung-joon Park’s research team proposes a new concept, Cyber-Physical AI (CPAI), to effectively integrate AI and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). - Expected to be applicable in various industries such as autonomous driving, smart factories, and medical robotics.

The rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI), which includes technologies such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek, has sparked significant global discussion. To gain an in-depth understanding of the potential application of GAI technologies in education, Lingnan University’s Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC) organised its annual Inno-GBA Seminar: Revolutionising Education with Generative Technologies on campus today, 8 April. The series, held in a hybrid mode, brought together leading artificial intelligence (AI) scholars from the Greater Bay Area (GBA) as guest speakers to analyse how AI can best stimulate innovation in teaching, and improve students' academic performance from real-life case studies. The events included weekly sessions of the “Global InnovateEd Webinars” held from 18 March to 1 April, where members of eight UGC-funded universities’ faculty and staff were invited to participate, and addressed an audience of over 600.

New machine learning model cuts fluid simulation time from 45 minutes to 3

Lingnan University Library has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Fudan University Library at the Handan Campus, Fudan University. This MoU marks the first collaborative agreement between Lingnan and Fudan University, with the aim of fostering a closer partnership, harnessing complementary strengths, and facilitating in-depth exchanges across a wide array of academic and professional domains.