The source text is in Chinese. This English version is for reference only. In case of any discrepancy between this English version and the Chinese version, the Chinese version shall prevail.   

In this year's Budget, the Government proposed establishing " The Committee on AI+ and Industry Development Strategy " (the "AI+ Committee") to formulate strategies for leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to drive industrial transformation and growth. The establishment of the AI+ Committee not only demonstrates that the Government views AI as key to building Hong Kong into a technology and innovation hub, but also presents an opportunity to advance AI development on all fronts.

A Critical Role for the Committee, with Precedents across Neighbouring Economies

In practice, the AI+ Committee could shoulder a more diverse set of responsibilities. Across Asia, governments in the Mainland, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, the UAE, and elsewhere have already established high-level dedicated bodies or related committees to oversee AI development in a centralised manner. Notably, South Korea last year enacted the world's first comprehensive AI legislation — the Framework Act on the Development of Artificial Intelligence and Establishment of Trust (the "AI Framework Act") — and, as required by the Act, established a National AI Strategy Committee chaired by the President, with scholars, experts, and industry representatives appointed as members of ten sub-committees, responsible for providing professional advice.

As South Korea's highest decision-making body on AI, the committee is responsible for advancing AI action plans and providing policy support to the country's AI industry, including assisting specific sectors such as manufacturing and services in adopting AI to enhance national AI competitiveness. In addition, the committee is tasked with refining the AI governance system — for example, stipulating that businesses using generative AI to provide products and services must inform users in advance, with violators subject to fines of up to 30 million Korean won (approximately HK$150,000). This illustrates how a high-level dedicated committee can pursue a twin-track approach, advancing AI development holistically through both a development blueprint and a governance framework.

Hong Kong Can Chart Its Own Blueprint to Accelerate AI Development

First, the AI+ Committee could set about formulating a dedicated AI development blueprint encompassing short-, medium-, and long-term planning, establishing a concrete action pathway for realising the "industries for AI" and "AI for industries" vision set out in last year's Policy Address. Hong Kong still lacks a systematic strategic framework to integrate its existing policies and channel them towards clearly defined milestones. Through the AI+ Committee, the authorities could work closely with a broad range of stakeholders — academics, industry representatives, SME operators, public sector representatives, and educators — to conduct a comprehensive strategic assessment of Hong Kong's position, identify areas of comparative advantage across the upstream, midstream, and downstream segments of the industry chain (for instance, at the downstream application layer, Hong Kong performs strongly in financial services and life sciences), explore viable pathways to enhance local AI competitiveness, and then formulate an AI development blueprint. This would provide enterprises along the industry chain with more comprehensive and targeted policy support spanning taxation, talent, technology transfer, and other domains, while establishing key performance indicators to continuously quantify and review policy effectiveness.

A Refined Governance Framework Is Needed to Address AI Ethics

The Budget states that the AI+ Committee will initially focus on life sciences and embodied intelligence — both application-oriented technologies in which Hong Kong already has a foundation, and which can deliver tangible products and services in real-world scenarios.

While driving the adoption of AI across industries is undoubtedly important, refining the AI governance framework is equally critical. The AI+ Committee could take on the responsibility of strengthening this framework to address the social and ethical issues arising from AI's rapid development. As ethical concerns such as deepfake fraud, personal data breaches, and AI bias grow increasingly severe, governance frameworks must keep pace. As the apex body driving Hong Kong's AI development, the AI+ Committee could consider working closely with the AI Research Institute, which is set to commence operations in the second half of this year. Given that the Research Institute supports AI innovation, R&D, and industrial application while keeping abreast of industry trends, collaboration between the two would help formulate an AI governance framework more responsive to societal needs — for instance, considering legally binding regulations for higher-risk AI applications.

Hong Kong possesses advantages in research, capital, data, and talent; what it needs is a clearer development pathway and a more robust AI governance framework. Looking ahead, it is expected that the AI+ Committee will assume the responsibilities outlined above, designing the development landscape from the top down and steering Hong Kong towards becoming a global AI hub.