Property developer Sino Group, through its charitable foundation, has pledged HK$200 million (US$25.7 million) to the Hong Kong government to accelerate the city’s development of artificial intelligence (AI). The funds will be used to create a mobile version of a localized chatbot based on DeepSeek’s model for public use in the coming months.
The Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation and Sino Group made the donation to the Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Centre (HKGAI), which operates under the government’s InnoHK initiative. This represents a significant contribution from the private sector toward the government’s AI development strategy, which was highlighted in 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 stated on Monday.
HKChat is an AI chatbot developed using the HKGAI V1 model, a ChatGPT-style tool powered by DeepSeek’s data learning model. It supports English, Cantonese, and Mandarin. Currently, the government is testing the chatbot internally.
When prompted, HKChat can provide real-time answers or generate responses to questions on diverse topics, including government services, legal matters, film box office information, and travel itinerary planning.
