The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Suzhou Calmcar Electronics Technology Co., Limited (CalmCar) officially signed a strategic agreement to jointly establish the Physical AI Innovation Center (the Center). The Center is dedicated to advancing full-stack physical AI technologies, addressing fundamental bottlenecks in current AI, including an insufficient understanding of the laws of the physical world, limited reasoning capabilities, and a lack of reliable support for action and decision-making.
The Center will build a new-generation physical AI technology foundation capable of understanding, predicting, reasoning, and decision-making, supporting strategic industries such as autonomous driving, robotics, and smart manufacturing, while helping position Hong Kong as a key strategic hub for national physical AI innovation.
Multidimensional Research Directions: Full-Stack Layout from Chips to Applications
The Center will pursue research covering chips and systems, foundational models and data, privacy protection and safety governance, as well as core application scenarios. By exploring and leveraging world models to build high-fidelity strategy validation and interactive reasoning capabilities, the Center aims to train AI in virtual environments before transferring capabilities to the real world-significantly improving AI's generalizability, interpretability, and reliability in complex and open environments, and building a long-term technical foundation for a wide range of intelligent applications.
The Center's ambition is to become a global strategic hub for physical AI innovation, leading the development of industry benchmarks and open-source platforms, and cultivating internationally competitive talent in physical AI.
Based in Hong Kong, Serving the National "AI+" Strategy
The Center will actively serve the national "AI+" strategy, positioning itself with Hong Kong as its base, the Greater Bay Area as its hinterland, and the world as its stage. It strives to become a strategic highland for physical AI research in the Asia-Pacific region and an international hub for collaboration. The Center will establish end-to-end capabilities from fundamental research to industrial deployment, providing unified technical standards and common tools for the industry. Leveraging Hong Kong's global connectivity and the Greater Bay Area's comprehensive industrial supply chain, the Center will accelerate technology transfer and build a world-leading research and innovation center for physical intelligence.
World-Class Academic Leadership
The Center is led by Prof. GUO Song - Chair Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Foreign Member of the European Academy of Sciences (EU), and IEEE Fellow-who serves as its director. Prof. Guo has long been engaged in distributed computing, edge AI, and multi-modal foundation models, dedicated to solving the challenges of generalization and reliability of AI in real-world physical environments.
He is a recipient of the IEEE Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement Award, one of the highest honors in computer engineering, and is widely recognized as an international leader in the field. He also leads the Pervasive Intelligence Laboratory (PeiLAB), which has been based in Hong Kong for a decade and has produced substantial original achievements in physical world modeling, embodied reinforcement learning, and edge intelligent systems, providing a solid theoretical foundation for the Center's research endeavors.
The Center has invited Prof. ZHENG Weimin-Senior Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 10th President of the China Computer Federation (CCF), and Professor at Tsinghua University-to chair its Strategic Committee. Prof. GUO Yike-Provost of HKUST, Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) and the European Academy of Sciences (EU) -serves as the University Advisor to the Center, providing strong support.
Other Strategic Committee advisors include Prof. Xuemin (Sherman) SHEN-Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and Professor at the University of Waterloo; Dr. Bai-ning GUO-Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Microsoft Technical Fellow, Managing Deputy Director of Microsoft Research Asia, IEEE Fellow, and ACM Fellow; and Prof. David Atienza ALONSO - Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences, IEEE Fellow, ACM Fellow, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at EPFL, and Associate Vice President for Centers and Platforms at EPFL.
From Perception to Understanding: Driving the Evolution of Intelligent Systems
Unlike traditional AI that relies on massive data fitting, physical AI emphasizes a model's ability to understand dynamic real-world laws and causal structures. Physical AI is driving intelligent systems beyond perception and recognition toward dynamic prediction, interactive reasoning, and autonomous decision-making grounded in physical consistency. As a key enabling technology, world models simulate and anticipate environmental dynamics, providing a foundation for policy learning and validation in complex scenarios while enhancing generalization and reliability in distributed settings.
Leveraging the Physical AI Innovation Center, CalmCar-as a co-founder of the Center- will take the lead in applying these technologies to autonomous driving, enabling vehicles not only to perceive their surroundings but also to understand physical causality and anticipate the evolution of traffic scenarios, thereby advancing from perception to cognition.
Looking ahead, the Center is committed to building partnerships with a broader range of industry partners, validating and refining physical AI technologies across diverse application scenarios, driving innovation in world model methodologies, and fostering the sustainable integration of physical AI technologies with the industrial ecosystem.
Unveiling Ceremony: Witnessed by Leaders from Government, Academia, and Industry
The unveiling ceremony brought together government leaders, leading academics, industry executives, and investment professionals. Representatives from HKUST and CalmCar's founding team jointly unveiled the Center. Distinguished guests, including Mr. Duncan CHIU, Legislative Council Member (Technology & Innovation) of Hong Kong, and Mr. CHEN Xu, Executive Deputy Director of the Guangzhou Greater Bay Area Office, witnessed the launch of the initiative
As a core strategic partner in establishing the Center, Lion X Ventures has been deeply involved in its preparation and ecosystem building throughout the process. Leveraging its industry resources, cross-border reach, and capital expertise, Lion X Ventures provides comprehensive support for the Center's operations and development, laying a solid foundation for its long-term growth.
The high-caliber presence of leaders from government, academia, industry, and investment community, combined with the strategic support of top investment institutions, fully demonstrates the Center's industry standing, resource depth, and strategic value. It also marks the official launch of a collaborative innovation ecosystem in the Greater Bay Area led by HKUST's physical AI technologies.
The gathering of leaders from academia, industry, and investment underscores the significance and impact of this collaboration. The establishment of the Center is not only a milestone in university-industry collaboration but also a model for technology exchange and innovation between Shanghai and Hong Kong.
The ceremony also marked the launch of the Industry-Research Alliance and the Capital Alliance, jointly initiated by HKUST, CalmCar, and other leading institutions. The inaugural industry partners include Tsinghua University, Microsoft Research Asia, 51WORLD (6651.HK), MetaX Integrated Circuits (688802.SH), Arm China, and Huixi Technology. Participating investment institutions include HSBC (0005.HK), Lion X Ventures, Dragonstone Capital, GPTX Investment, Delian Capital, G70 MFO, WeMove Capital, and Great Filter Venture.
This marks the official launch of a collaborative innovation ecosystem spanning industry, academia, research, and application in the field of physical AI.
The Industry-Research Alliance will focus on technology breakthroughs and scenario deployment, while the Capital Alliance will provide funding and commercialization pathways for leading technologies.
In terms of talent development, both sides will build an industrial training system aligned with international standards, with CalmCar providing real-world engineering scenarios and hands-on opportunities, thereby nurturing a talent pipeline that spans basic research, technology development, and application deployment.
The establishment of the Physical AI Innovation Center will further promote technology exchange and resource integration between Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland in the most advanced frontier of physical AI. It aims to attract partners across the entire industrial chain and create an open, win-win ecosystem for the physical AI industry.
