On 19 July 2026, the Urban Systems Institute (USI) of the University of Hong Kong (HKU), in collaboration with the Institute for Climate and Carbon Neutrality (ICCN) at HKU, the State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building and Urban Science Hong Kong Base (SKL-SBUS-HK), the Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Hong Kong Chapter (GRSS-HK), successfully hosted the inaugural Urban Systems Forum under the theme "Advanced Modeling of Urban Systems for Sustainable Cities." The Forum served as a high-level international academic platform, fulfilling USI's core mission to advance the sciences of urban systems and deepen their practical applications.

The Smart QS Hackathon 2026, co-organised for the first time by the Housing Bureau and the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA), Cyberport, and the University of Hong Kong (HKU), was officially launched today (July 29) with a welcome ceremony and briefing session held at Cyberport. The Hackathon aims to explore innovative applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Quantity Surveying (QS) through cross-sector collaboration, facilitating the intelligent transformation of the construction industry and enhancing the management and service effectiveness of public works.

A research team led by Professor Ruibang LUO, Assistant Director (Learning Experience & Student Enrichment) and Associate Head of the Department of AI & Data Science, School of Computing and Data Science (CDS), The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has developed ClairS—a novel deep-learning algorithm that significantly improves the detection of cancer mutations using long-read sequencing. Tested on breast cancer, lung cancer and melanoma cell-line datasets, ClairS has demonstrated exceptional accuracy across various cancer types and sequencing conditions.

Professor Jun Yang, Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering under the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has been honoured with the State Natural Science Award (Second Class Prize). The list of awardees was officially announced at the National Science and Technology Award Conference, and the General Assemblies of the Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering held in Beijing on 8 July.

A cross-disciplinary research team led by Professor Hongjie DAI, Director of The Materials Institute of Life Sciences and Energy (MILES) of The University of Hong Kong (HKU) in Shenzhen, has developed a promising near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent dye for potential clinical application in ureter imaging during surgical navigation.

Researchers from NYCU and TSMC show that redefining the atomic boundary between materials can address a major engineering barrier restricting the development of next-generation semiconductor devices.

Sungkyunkwan University announced that a research team led by Professor Jung Kyu Kim from the School of Chemical Engineering and Dr. Jai Hyun Koh’s research team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), has developed a highly efficient catalyst that directly converts carbon dioxide—a major contributor to global warming—into industrially high-value 2-propanol.

-Professor Hee-Tak Kim's team in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering develops a process technology that cuts production time of electrolyte for vanadium redox flow batteries, a promising large-scale energy storage system (ESS) by 67%.

-Resolves the largest bottleneck to commercialization, with the catalyst maintaining performance over more than 2,500 repeated cycles; expected to accelerate the rollout of ultra-large batteries for AI data centers and renewable energy storage