Straits Institute for Applied AI
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Applied AI in Hong Kong

Hong Kong's AI is government-led — 30 projects running across 13 departments — backed by HK$1bn for an AI research institute in the 2025-26 Budget.

AI readiness
0.70
Rank 22 of 171 — IMF AI Preparedness Index
On the record
7
entries across 4 industries
National programme
2025
AI+ measures in the 2025-26 Budget — HK$1bn AI R&D Institute; HK$3bn AI Subsidy Scheme
National programme

AI+ measures in the 2025-26 Budget

Announced 2025, HK$1bn AI R&D Institute; HK$3bn AI Subsidy Scheme. Its pillars are research institute, industry subsidy, supercomputing.

Services 91.5% · Industry 6.2% of gross value added — World Bank, 2024

Kind
Role
7 entries

Government & Public Sector

4

The Digital Policy Office has 30 AI projects running across 13 government departments, and AI has halved the environmental impact assessment timeline.

DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorHong Kong27 Aug 2026

Hong Kong DPO announces four AI projects to upgrade 1823 services

Digital Policy Office — Hong Kong's Digital Policy Office (DPO) is building an AI government hotline, launching four AI Efficacy Enhancement Projects for 1823 by end of 2026. LLMs and speech recognition power a Call Assistant drafting case summaries, an Email Extraction tool cutting data entry by 30%, priority sorting of department replies, and a district-level Dashboard. AI Agents get piloted across departments in Q4, widening automation into public-sector case handling.

Civil servantinfo.gov.hk
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorHong Kong20 Aug 2026

Hong Kong will approve nine in ten licence renewals by AI

Transport Department — The Transport Department said its Easy Licence Application Approval project will go live by the end of 2026 and automatically recognise, cross-check and verify the documents behind online vehicle licence renewals, pushing automatic approvals past 90 per cent and cutting processing from up to ten working days to one. The same AI vehicle licensing work is to cover the Northbound Travel for Hong Kong Vehicles and Southbound Travel for Guangdong Vehicles schemes, where the department is aiming at over 50 per cent of cross-boundary driving permit applications approved automatically and manual processing times about 20 per cent shorter. Automated licence approval is the largest of a set of AI projects the department set out that day.

Vehicle licensing officernews.gov.hk
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorHong Kong17 Aug 2026

Hong Kong rolls out 30 AI projects across 13 government departments

Digital Policy Office — Hong Kong's Digital Policy Office has run 30 AI 'Efficacy Enhancement Projects' across 13 government departments since mid-2026, spanning complaint handling, environmental protection and hygiene, leisure and sports facilities, and transport and food-business licences. It credits AI in government services with up to 90% shorter waiting or processing times in some cases and some internal workflows cut from days to hours by the AI projects; no independent evaluation exists.

Public-service officernews.gov.hk
Evidence of impactGovernment & Public SectorHong Kong17 Aug 2026

AI halves Hong Kong's environmental impact assessment timeline

Environmental Protection Department — Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department has used AI environmental impact assessment to cut the process from 36 to 48 months down to 15 to 24 months. The government says the saving spans environmental data collection and completing the assessment itself.

scmp.com

Finance & Insurance

1

The Monetary Authority has selected 36 AI cases for supervised trials in finance.

RegulationFinance & InsuranceHong Kong27 Aug 2026

Hong Kong regulators select 36 AI cases for supervised finance trials

Hong Kong Monetary Authority — The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Securities and Futures Commission, the Insurance Authority and the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority, with Hong Kong Cyberport, have picked 36 use cases from nearly 100 proposals for the first GenA.I. Sandbox++ cohort. 30 financial institutions and 27 technology partners take part, including Ant Bank (Hong Kong), WeChat Pay Hong Kong and Hang Seng Bank, focusing on agentic AI in finance for customer interactions, insurance claims, payments and onboarding, and on AI giving dynamic oversight of other AI applications' actions.

thestandard.com.hk

Technology & Software

1
Evidence of adoptionTechnology & SoftwareHong Kong3 Jun 2026

94% of Hong Kong organisations use AI tools, survey finds

HKIRC — A poll of 800 organisations by Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation found 94% had adopted AI tools at work, reflecting widespread AI adoption in Hong Kong businesses. Yet 63% had no formal policy covering workplace AI tools and 68% skipped staff training on the technology. Unauthorised AI tools were in use by staff at nearly half the firms surveyed, without company approval.

hongkongfp.com
Latest on the record
  • RegulationHong Kong regulators select 36 AI cases for supervised finance trialsFinance & Insurance27 Aug 2026thestandard.com.hk
  • DeploymentHong Kong will approve nine in ten licence renewals by AIGovernment & Public Sector20 Aug 2026news.gov.hk
  • DeploymentHong Kong rolls out 30 AI projects across 13 government departmentsGovernment & Public Sector17 Aug 2026news.gov.hk
  • Evidence of impactAI halves Hong Kong's environmental impact assessment timelineGovernment & Public Sector17 Aug 2026scmp.com
Asia-Pacific
Hong Kong0.70Singapore0.80South Korea0.73China0.64Japan0.73Azerbaijan—India0.49Australia0.73Malaysia0.63Pakistan0.37Philippines0.50Cambodia—Kyrgyzstan—Armenia—Cyprus—Thailand0.54Brunei—Georgia—Macao—Tajikistan—Fiji—Guam—Kazakhstan—Maldives—Papua New Guinea—Taiwan—Uzbekistan—
Method and sources

Every entry on this page is a named organisation putting AI to work in a real job, taken from the State of Applied AI record. Each one is traced to the report it came from and dated, and where a figure is the organisation’s own the entry says so rather than presenting it as an independent result. Readiness, ecosystem and policy figures, where shown, are attributed on the card to the body that published them.

The record is maintained continuously by the Industrial Research Unit of the Straits Institute for Applied AI: entries are added as they are found and verified, not on a schedule, and nothing is published without an open source behind it. It currently holds 1114 entries across 249 countries.