Sino Group donates HK$200 million to support Hong Kong’s AI development
Funds will be used to create mobile version of DeepSeek-powered chatbot that will be available to residents in coming months
Property giant Sino Group’s charitable foundation has donated HK$200 million (US$25.7 million) to the government in support of Hong Kong’s artificial intelligence (AI) development, with a focus on creating a mobile version of a localised chatbot based on DeepSeek’s model that will be rolled out to residents in the coming months.
The sum was given by the Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation and Sino Group to the Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Centre (HKGAI) under the government’s InnoHK initiative.
The deal marked a major donation by the private sector to the government’s push on AI development in the city, in line with Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po’s budget address last month.
“This donation will support the HKGAI’s establishment of a service platform to provide the public with a model developed in the city, HKChat, the first service of its kind in the industry based on a localised DeepSeek model,” Chan said on Monday.
HKChat is an AI chatbot built on the HKGAI V1 model, a ChatGPT-style AI tool powered by DeepSeek’s data learning model, which supports English, Cantonese and Mandarin, and is currently being tested by government departments.
When given prompts, HKChat can provide answers or generate responses in real-time to questions on topics such as the government, the law, film box office or travel itinerary planning.
