Dec 12, 2024

Dec 12, 2024

Research Works

Article 1

Title: Towards Synergistic, Generalized, and Efficient Dual-System for Robotic Manipulation

Presenter: ZHOU Pei

Presentation Date: December 12, 2024 (Thursday)

Research Areas: Computer vision, robotics

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.08001

Article 2

Title: Zero-Shot Robotic Manipulation with Pretrained Image-Editing Diffusion Models

Presenter: ZHOU Pei

Presentation Date: December 12, 2024 (Thursday)

Research Areas: Computer vision, robotics

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.10639

Photo Album

IDS Seminar: Neuro-Symbolic Static Analysis for Reliable Software Systems 

IDS Seminar: Neuro-Symbolic Static Analysis for Reliable Software Systems

Title: Neuro-Symbolic Static Analysis for Reliable Software Systems
Speaker: Dr. Chengpeng Wang, Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Purdue University
Date: December 16, 2024
Time: 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Venue: IDS Seminar Room, P603, Graduate House / Zoom 
Mode: Hybrid. Seats for on-site participants are limited. A confirmation email will be sent to participants who have successfully registered.

Abstract

Static analysis is fundamental to program debugging and security auditing. Traditional techniques, such as data-flow analysis and symbolic execution, facilitate the automatic detection of software bugs, thereby greatly enhancing software reliability. However, their reliance on compilation processes and limited customization capabilities often impede practical adoption in real-world applications. In this talk, I will introduce a new paradigm of static analysis, named the neuro-symbolic approach, and present two recent works, LLMSAN and LLMDFA, which enable customizable, compilation-free analysis. Unlike conventional analyzers, LLMSAN and LLMDFA empower users to customize analyses via prompts and leverage large language models (LLMs) to interpret program semantics without requiring compilation. To address LLM hallucinations, they incorporate a series of parsing-based validators and an SMT solver to validate data-flow paths, ensuring the high quality of bug reports. Our techniques have identified 26 previously unknown memory corruption across 15 real-world software systems, including programs up to 400K lines of code. 

Speaker

Dr. Chengpeng Wang
Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Purdue University

Chengpeng Wang is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Computer Science Department of Purdue University, working with Professor Xiangyu Zhang. He obtained the Ph.D. degree from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2023, under the supervision of Professor Charles Zhang. His research mainly focuses on the use of program analysis, especially static analysis, to improve software reliability and performance. He is also interested in the intersection of machine learning techniques and symbolic analysis techniques. His contributions to the field have been recognized through publications in esteemed conferences and journals on programming languages, software engineering, and systems. He has been awarded the SIGPLAN Distinguished Paper Award (2022) and the ASPLOS Best Paper Award (2024). He received his BEng and MPhil degrees from Tsinghua University, in 2016 and 2019, respectively. 

For full biography of Dr. Wang, please refer to: https://chengpeng-wang.github.io/

Moderator

Prof. Ho Chen
Chair Professor, HKU IDS & Department of Computer Science, School of Computing and Data Science, HKU 
Prof. Chen received his PhD in Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His current research interests are computer security, machine learning, and program analysis and testing. He directs the JC STEM Lab of Intelligent Cybersecurity. He is a fellow of IEEE.

For full biography of Prof. Chen, please refer to: https://datascience.hku.hk/people/ho-chen/

For information, please contact:
Email: datascience@hku.hk

Rising and Shining on an International Research Platform – Sharing on Conference Takeaways by HKU IDS Students at ECCV2024 

Rising and Shining on an International Research Platform

Sharing on Conference Takeaways by HKU IDS Students at ECCV 2024

HKU IDS research students continue to rise to the global stage in disseminating their research works by taking part in esteemed international conferences! Two of our first-year PhD candidates, Mr. Pei Zhou and Mr. Chenming Zhu, gave their poster presentations at the 2024 European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV 2024), held in Milan, Italy between September 29, 2024 and October 4, 2024. They had thoroughly enjoyed an academically rewarding, and also prestigious platform during which they could mingle and network with esteemed researchers from the field of computer vision and machine learning. ECCV is a biennial premier research conference in Computer Vision and Machine Learning, held on even years to gather significant works from the scientific and industrial communities. 

Despite being junior PhD candidates at the Institute, both Pei and Chenming are listed the first authors to their respective accepted paper – the two of them led poster and oral presentations about their works in front of online and offline audience. You may browse the links to study their papers. 

HKU IDS research students continue to rise to the global stage in disseminating their research works by taking part in esteemed international conferences! Two of our first-year PhD candidates, Mr. Pei Zhou and Mr. Chenming Zhu, gave their poster presentations at the 2024 European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV 2024), held in Milan, Italy between September 29, 2024 and October 4, 2024

They had thoroughly enjoyed an academically rewarding, and also prestigious platform during which they could mingle and network with esteemed researchers from the field of computer vision and machine learning. ECCV is a biennial premier research conference in Computer Vision and Machine Learning, held on even years to gather significant works from the scientific and industrial communities. 

Despite being junior PhD candidates at the Institute, both Pei and Chenming are listed the first authors to their respective accepted paper – the two of them led poster and oral presentations about their works in front of online and offline audience. You may browse the links to study their papers. 

First authors of the papers marked with a (*) 

Mr. Chenming ZHU

Primary Supervisor:

Professor Xihui Liu

Assistant Professor at HKU IDS/EEE

working on Computer Vision

Q

Congratulations on having your paper featured in ECCV 2024! It seems that there were some other activities for you to experience at the conference in addition to the academic parts. Can you tell me more? 

A

ECCV offered a diverse range of workshops covering numerous aspects of computer vision. The conference attracted not only paper authors but also major technology companies including Apple, Google, and Meta. These companies maintained their own booths to showcase their products/papers, recruit talent, and organize various activities with giveaways. A standout highlight was Meta’s Arial team, which offered on-site AR glasses demonstrations and hosted a dedicated workshop to introduce their AR projects with hands-on teaching sessions. Pei and I had a good time exploring in the conference venue – so much fun! 

Q

So did you manage to mingle with industrial partners riding on the chance of this conference? 

A

I was glad that we did. Huawei hosted a reception dinner at ECCV, inviting conference attendees to learn about their work. This dinner provided an excellent opportunity to meet and connect with interesting individuals worldwide. I was honoured to present myself as an emerging researcher from IDS and HKU, and hopefully there could be possible future collaborations.

Mr. Chenming ZHU

Primary Supervisor:

Professor Xihui Liu

Assistant Professor at HKU IDS/EEE

working on Computer Vision

Q

Congratulations on having your paper featured in ECCV 2024! It seems that there were some other activities for you to experience at the conference in addition to the academic parts. Can you tell me more? 

A

ECCV offered a diverse range of workshops covering numerous aspects of computer vision. The conference attracted not only paper authors but also major technology companies including Apple, Google, and Meta. These companies maintained their own booths to showcase their products/papers, recruit talent, and organize various activities with giveaways. A standout highlight was Meta’s Arial team, which offered on-site AR glasses demonstrations and hosted a dedicated workshop to introduce their AR projects with hands-on teaching sessions. Pei and I had a good time exploring in the conference venue – so much fun! 

Q

So did you manage to mingle with industrial partners riding on the chance of this conference? 

A

I was glad that we did. Huawei hosted a reception dinner at ECCV, inviting conference attendees to learn about their work. This dinner provided an excellent opportunity to meet and connect with interesting individuals worldwide. I was honoured to present myself as an emerging researcher from IDS and HKU, and hopefully there could be possible future collaborations.

Q

I wish I had a chance to go there as well! Are there any sections of the conference which you see as helpful to your intellectual growth? Did you also give a paper presentation at ECCV? 

A

You are right – I took part in the oral paper presentations which featured many engaging and captivating sessions. One particularly impressive presentation I sat in used stunning and dynamic animations to share their research findings, making the methodology extremely clear and the entire presentation more engaging and memorable. I feel like it could be something I learn from in my future sharing. And of course, I was so thrilled to be able to share my paper on 3D Visual Grounding with like minds in the conference. 

Q

Overall, what did this trip to ECCV 2024 at Milan mean to you?

A

This trip provided valuable opportunities for in-depth discussions with researchers from different fields, gaining insights into the latest developments in the field, and exploring shared perspectives on current challenges. Additionally, it served as a platform to promote IDS and potentially foster external collaborations. The experience and connections made during the conference could contribute to expanding IDS’s network and research opportunities.

Q

I wish I had a chance to go there as well! Are there any sections of the conference which you see as helpful to your intellectual growth? Did you also give a paper presentation at ECCV? 

A

You are right – I took part in the oral paper presentations which featured many engaging and captivating sessions. One particularly impressive presentation I sat in used stunning and dynamic animations to share their research findings, making the methodology extremely clear and the entire presentation more engaging and memorable. I feel like it could be something I learn from in my future sharing. And of course, I was so thrilled to be able to share my paper on 3D Visual Grounding with like minds in the conference. 

Q

Overall, what did this trip to ECCV 2024 at Milan mean to you?

A

This trip provided valuable opportunities for in-depth discussions with researchers from different fields, gaining insights into the latest developments in the field, and exploring shared perspectives on current challenges. Additionally, it served as a platform to promote IDS and potentially foster external collaborations. The experience and connections made during the conference could contribute to expanding IDS’s network and research opportunities.

Mr. Pei ZHOU

Primary Supervisor:

Professor Yanchao Yang

Assistant Professor at HKU IDS/EEE

working on Embodied AI

Q

Pei, was it your first time taking part in an international academic conference of such a large scale? 

A

Standing there during my presentations, I was truly enchanted – sharing and powdering upon one’s works again and again enables you to think of ways to expand the impact of your research. It was fascinating to join the discussions with researchers from around the globe to get inspired. I found it so encouraging to receive thoughtful feedback and suggestions from peers who shared my research interests. These conversations not only helped refine my ideas but also boosted my confidence as an emerging researcher. 

Q

Wow, sounds super cool. Please tell me more about how attending a conference can add to your future career as a researcher focusing on robotics, embodied AI and machine learning. It must be a unique experience exchanging thoughts with academic or industrial professionals who work on the same field. 

A

Standing there during my presentations, I was truly enchanted – sharing and powdering upon one’s works again and again enables you to think of ways to expand the impact of your research. It was fascinating to join the discussions with researchers from around the globe to get inspired. I found it so encouraging to receive thoughtful feedback and suggestions from peers who shared my research interests. These conversations not only helped refine my ideas but also boosted my confidence as an emerging researcher. 

Q

Do you think the ECCV 2024 was a platform for you to strengthen ties between yourself, as a part of the IDS research community, and the international arena? 

A

Definitely the case! The conference was like a window into the future of computer vision and embodied AI research. From groundbreaking algorithms to novel applications, each session revealed something new and exciting. I found myself frantically taking notes, trying to capture all the brilliant ideas being shared. Perhaps the most valuable takeaway was the connections I made with fellow researchers. These networking opportunities, from casual coffee break conversations to detailed technical discussions, have opened up possibilities for future collaborations. As a first-year doctoral student at IDS, these interactions have helped me chart a clearer course for my research journey ahead. 

Mr. Pei ZHOU

Primary Supervisor:

Professor Yanchao Yang

Assistant Professor at HKU IDS/EEE

working on Embodied AI

Q

Pei, was it your first time taking part in an international academic conference of such a large scale? 

A

Standing there during my presentations, I was truly enchanted – sharing and powdering upon one’s works again and again enables you to think of ways to expand the impact of your research. It was fascinating to join the discussions with researchers from around the globe to get inspired. I found it so encouraging to receive thoughtful feedback and suggestions from peers who shared my research interests. These conversations not only helped refine my ideas but also boosted my confidence as an emerging researcher. 

Q

Wow, sounds super cool. Please tell me more about how attending a conference can add to your future career as a researcher focusing on robotics, embodied AI and machine learning. It must be a unique experience exchanging thoughts with academic or industrial professionals who work on the same field. 

A

Standing there during my presentations, I was truly enchanted – sharing and powdering upon one’s works again and again enables you to think of ways to expand the impact of your research. It was fascinating to join the discussions with researchers from around the globe to get inspired. I found it so encouraging to receive thoughtful feedback and suggestions from peers who shared my research interests. These conversations not only helped refine my ideas but also boosted my confidence as an emerging researcher. 

Q

Do you think the ECCV 2024 was a platform for you to strengthen ties between yourself, as a part of the IDS research community, and the international arena? 

A

Definitely the case! The conference was like a window into the future of computer vision and embodied AI research. From groundbreaking algorithms to novel applications, each session revealed something new and exciting. I found myself frantically taking notes, trying to capture all the brilliant ideas being shared. Perhaps the most valuable takeaway was the connections I made with fellow researchers. These networking opportunities, from casual coffee break conversations to detailed technical discussions, have opened up possibilities for future collaborations. As a first-year doctoral student at IDS, these interactions have helped me chart a clearer course for my research journey ahead. 

Big Congratulations to Our HKU IDS Research Rising Star – HKU IDS PhD Candidate Xubin REN Being Awarded the Prestigious “NSFC Young Student Basic Research Program (PhD candidate)” for 2024!

Big Congratulations to Our HKU IDS Research Rising Star – HKU IDS PhD Candidate Xubin REN Being Awarded the Prestigious “NSFC Young Student Basic Research Program (PhD candidate)” for 2024!

The HKU IDS community continues reaching new height along their research journey! We are excited to announce that Mr. Xubin Ren, 2nd year PhD candidate at the Institute, has been selected for the “NSFC Young Student Basic Research Program (PhD candidate) (國家自然科學基金青年學生基礎研究項目(博士研究生))”! Xubin is one of the only 8 students awarded to this programme under The University of Hong Kong, remarking his outstanding academic results and excellence in his research areas. His awarded project is titled “Towards Robust and Explainable Generalized Recommender Systems (具有健全性與可解釋性的可泛化推薦演算法研究)”.

Organized by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Program aims at nurturing PhD candidates of their independent scientific research ability, as well as stimulating innovative ideas in facilitating high-quality, impactful works of basic and fundamental research. Each awardee will be sponsored CNY 300,000. Xubin is currently supervised by Professor Chao Huang, HKU-100 IDS Scholar, whose research interests lie with probabilistic graphic models, data mining, and recommender systems.

Let’s join me in congratulating Xubin and Professor Huang’s team for the remarkable achievements!

First HKU IDS Staff Retreat on December 2, 2024

First HKU IDS Staff Retreat on December 2, 2024

There was nothing better than escaping from one’s daily hectic schedule, and immersing in a morning hike in the suburbs which are surrounded by nice weather, smiley faces, and stunning scenery!  The 1st Retreat, held in Tai Lam Chung Reservoir & Hong Kong Gold Coast Hotel, was successfully concluded on December 2, 2024.

Attended by our HKU IDS management team, HKU-100 IDS Scholars, and administrative staff members, the Retreat provided a valuable platform for both physical and intellectual insights – after enjoying sun kisses at the 2-hour hike to the “Thousand Islands Lake” in Tuen Mun, Team HKU IDS headed for an afternoon session of research discussions for sharing ideas over the future directions and strategic development of the Institute.

In-depth discussions, which included individual breakout sessions in the groups, revolved around the Institute’s research postgraduate education, teaching and learning innovations, plans to foster interdisciplinary collaborations, knowledge transfer initiatives, and the means to sustaining the growth of HKU IDS. The sessions were thorough and fruitful – let’s look forward to implementing the discussed initiatives and generating more impactful research works in AI-related topics!

Dec 05, 2024

Research Works

Article 1

Title: AnyTeleop: A General Vision-Based Dexterous Robot Arm-Hand Teleoperation System

Presenter: LUO Qian

Presentation Date: December 5, 2024 (Thursday)

Research Areas: Dexhand Manipulation, Data collection

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2307.04577

Article 2

Title: DexCap: Scalable and Portable Mocap Data Collection System for Dexterous Manipulation

Presenter: LUO Qian

Presentation Date: December 5, 2024 (Thursday)

Research Areas: Dexhand Manipulation, Data collection

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2403.07788

Photo Album

HKU IDS Scholar Seminar Series #13: The Path to AGI? A Detailed Introduction of Scaling Laws

HKU IDS Scholar Seminar Series #13:
The Path to AGI? A Detailed Introduction of Scaling Laws

Title: The Path to AGI? A Detailed Introduction of Scaling Laws
Speaker: Professor Bo DAI, Assistant Professor, HKU IDS 
Date: December 16, 2024
Time: 11:00am – 12:00nn

Venue: IDS Seminar Room, P603, Graduate House / Zoom 
Mode: Hybrid. Seats for on-site participants are limited. A confirmation email will be sent to participants who have successfully registered.

Abstract

Nowadays almost everyone in the AI community talks about scaling laws. While many people believe AGI will go through scaling alone, there are also critics argue the opposite. In such cases, it’s better for us to understand scaling laws in details before joining the debate. In this talk, we will start by introducing the study on the scaling laws for language models, where the loss scales as a power-law with model size, dataset size, and the amount of compute used for training, with some trends spanning more than seven orders of magnitude. After that, we will move from language models to diffusion transformers (DiT) used for image generation, since DiTs are getting bigger and bigger and larger DiTs result in better visual quality and improved text-image alignment, yet the scaling law for DiT is less explored. Through experiments across a broad range of compute budgets, we confirm that the loss of pre-training DiT also follows a power-law relationship with the involved compute, which provides a predictable benchmark that assesses model performance and data quality at a reduced cost.

Speaker

Prof. Bo DAI
Assistant Professor @ HKU IDS
Dr Bo Dai is an Assistant Professor in the Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science, The University of Hong Kong. He obtained his PhD degree from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, working with Prof. Dahua Lin. His research interests include Generative AI and its interdisciplinary applications in areas covering Embodied AI, Scientific Discovery, Metaverse and Creativity. His representative works include AnimateDiff, a pioneering work and milestone in video generation, as well as a leading research series in city-scale scene reconstruction and rendering such as CityNeRF, GridNeRF, LandMark, and Scaffold-GS. He is an Area Chair of NeurIPS2024 and AAAI 2021.
For full biography of Prof. DAI, please refer to: https://datascience.hku.hk/people/bo-dai/

Moderator

Prof. Yi Ma
Director; Professor, Chair of Artificial Intelligence @ HKU IDS & Department of Computer Science 

Professor Yi Ma is a Chair Professor in the Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science (HKU IDS) and Department of Computer Science at the University of Hong Kong. He took up the Directorship of HKU IDS on January 12, 2023. He is also a Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published about 60 journal papers, 120 conference papers, and three textbooks in computer vision, generalized principal component analysis, and high-dimensional data analysis. 

Professor Ma’s research interests cover computer vision, high-dimensional data analysis, and intelligent systems. For full biography of Professor Ma, please refer to: https://datascience.hku.hk/people/yi-ma/

For information, please contact:
Email: datascience@hku.hk

Nov 21, 2024

Research Works

Article 1

Title: Loong: Generating Minute-level Long Videos with Autoregressive Language Models

Presenter: WANG Yuqing

Presentation Date: November 21, 2024 (Thursday)

Research Areas: Computer vision, video generation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.02757

Article 2

Title: Visual Instruction Tuning

Presenter: ZHU Chenming

Presentation Date: November 21, 2024 (Thursday)

Research Areas: Computer vision, multi-modal LLM

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.08485

Article 3

Title: LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfer

Presenter: ZHU Chenming

Presentation Date: November 21, 2024 (Thursday)

Research Areas: Computer vision, multi-modal LLM

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2408.03326

Article 4

Title: LLaVA-3D: A Simple yet Effective Pathway to Empowering LMMs with 3D-awareness

Presenter: ZHU Chenming

Presentation Date: November 21, 2024 (Thursday)

Research Areas: Computer vision, multi-modal LLM

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2409.18125

Photo Album

HKU IDS Scholar Prof Chao Huang Received the “Best Paper Honorable Mention Award” at the ACM Multimedia Conference (ACM MM) 2024!

HKU IDS Scholar Prof Chao Huang Received the “Best Paper Honorable Mention Award” at the ACM Multimedia Conference (ACM MM) 2024!

Professor Chao Huang, HKU-100 IDS Scholar, has been honoured the “Best Paper Honorable Mention Award”, among the 1,149 accepted papers at the ACM Multimedia Conference (ACM MM) 2024! Congratulations on Professor Huang and his research team on their outstanding achievement.

ACM Multimedia Conference (ACM MM) 2024 is a top-quality conference in data science and AI for multimedia that covers a full diversity of all fields of multimedia research including a variety of media modalities by addressing both technological and practical challenges. The most innovative and the most impactful novelty on individual media and/or from a systematic perspective of innovating and integrating multiple components across modalities have been selected.

Professor Chao Huang’s research interests cover data mining and machine learning. For more information about Professor Huang, please browse: https://datascience.hku.hk/people/chao-huang/

Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science (IDS) Celebrates Grand Opening of New Premises

Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science (IDS) Celebrates Its Grand Opening of New Premises on October 29, 2024!

(Please enjoy the event highlight video to revisit the delightful moments on October 29, 2024!)

The Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science (IDS) is thrilled to announce the grand opening of its new office premises on October 29, 2024, marking a significant milestone as the Institute celebrates its third anniversary. The opening was officiated by distinguished guests, including President Zhang Xiang, the three donors from The Musketeers Education and Culture Charitable Foundation, Mr. Stanley Chu, Mr. Lawrence Fung, and Mr. KC Leong, Professor Max Shen, Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research), and Professor Yi Ma, Director of IDS, in a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The Institute is celebrating this milestone with its faculty members, students, collaborators, and stakeholders on this momentous occasion.

Ribbon-cutting Ceremony Officiated by Our 6 Guests of Honour

Unique Role and Vision – New Establishment Moving Forward

IDS’s unique role as an independent, cross-disciplinary research institute sets it apart as a beacon of innovation and collaboration within HKU. With a focus on fundamental data science, Explainable AI, and Smart Societies, IDS drives impactful and transformative research initiatives that push the boundaries of knowledge and create a critical mass of expertise in data science.

Going forward, IDS will spare its efforts on interdisciplinary areas between AI and subjects that are yet to have created critical mass in the community. We would focus on topics including AI in humanity, AI in medicine, AI in cybersecurity, and more. We are delighted to announce the new establishment of the research centre called Interdisciplinary Dynamics: Ethics, AI, and Society (IDEAS). IDEAS is an interdisciplinary research centre dedicated to exploring the ethical, legal, social, and governance aspects of AI.

Modern and Collaborative Environment

The grand opening of the new premises symbolizes IDS’s ambition for a bright future filled with groundbreaking achievements and collaborative endeavors. The modern and innovative workspace, namely the Innovation Hub, the Research Sandbox, and the HKU IDS Seminar Room, designed to foster openness and interaction, provides a dynamic environment for scholars, postgraduate research students, and researchers to engage in cutting-edge research and collaboration across disciplines.

Rapid Growth and Achievements

In the past three years, the Institute has seen rapid growth in talent recruitment, increasing the number of HKU100 scholars from six in 2022 to sixteen in 2024. IDS has also nurtured the next generation of researchers through its well-structured research postgraduate program. The Institute has become a pioneer for other research institutes within the University to follow, both in structure and management.

President’s Remarks

President Zhang Xiang said at the Grand Opening, “AI is not only for computer science engineering, and it is actually for everybody in the campus. We believe that if we can really impact many different disciplines, be it education, arts, science, medicine, law, and even more areas, just as what the Institute’s mission has stated, it will be the reason why HKU can stand out from all, tall and visible”, acknowledging how the Institute’s unique positioning is valuable in steering more cutting-edge, impactful research works. Prof Zhang also puts high hopes on the future development of the Institute, with the office premises expansion along its third year of establishment. The era of AI, as Prof Zhang concludes, renders a golden opportunity for humans to generate more creativity, rather than sticking to routine, mechanical chores. This “exciting, challenging” age that the University is embracing indeed highlights the significance of an even more well-rounded research environment that IDS is heading towards, providing positive reinforcement for the Institute to carry on its mission as the nexus of data science research for HKU and beyond.

Remarks from Vice President (Research)

Vice-President (Research), who was also the Founding Director to the Institute, Professor Max Shen, reiterated the aspirations of IDS to become a “world-leading research institute, first of the kind that will be innovative and pioneering in AI”, owing to the generous donation of the three Musketeers. Professor Shen adds, “Actually, I have had this [vision] in my dream, and it is now realizing, which makes me really happy.” Professor Shen addresses special thanks to the current Director of IDS, Professor Yi Ma, for his “endeavours of designing world-class graduate courses”, which will make “HKU IDS the role model for many of the data science institutes to learn and study.” Professor Shen stresses the importance of IDS as a distinctive establishment, “We want this Institute to be standing for a long time – just like leading labs in MIT and Stanford. With the backing of the new School of Computing and Data Science, [as well as other Faculties and Departments], I do think IDS will be the leading AI institute for all disciplines alike.” 

Remarks from Our Benefactors

The Institute’s benefactors, the three Musketeers from The Musketeers Education and Culture Charitable Foundation, also graced the Ceremony. One of the Musketeers, Mr Ka-Chai Leong, remarks and acknowledges the University, and the team of IDS, for their dedication to “building talents, recruiting talents, growing talents, and connecting talents, for these are critical for competitiveness”, which makes the research community of the Institute standing strong and firm with its ever-expanding premises. Mr Leong, together with the other two Musketeers, expresses sincere wishes to the graduate students for their hard work towards research excellence. He emphasizes to all young faces on the spot to bear the thought of being united, connected at the hearts for their unique bonding because of IDS, “Our Foundation is looking forward to the one-heart (同心)that grows IDS into a talent hub in the East.”

Future Commitment and Global Impact

As IDS embarks on its journey towards further interdisciplinary research and talent development, the Institute remains committed to driving innovation and excellence in data science for the benefit of the community and beyond. With a strong foundation and a vision for sustained growth, IDS is poised to make significant contributions to the field of data science on a global scale.

More Information about the Grand Opening of HKU IDS Premises

English version, please browse: https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/27841.html

Chinese version, please browse: https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/c_27841.html