We are proud to announce that a team from the HKU School of Computing and Data Science (CDS), has achieved remarkable success at the Global AI Challenge for Building E&M Facilities 2025, winning both the Gold Award and the ALIBABA Cloud Most Scalable AI Solution Award in the Academic Group category.

The award-winning team included postdoctoral researcher Dr. Qingqing FENG and two PhD candidates, Xie ZHANG and Sheng LYU, under the supervision of Professor WU Chenshu.

Organised jointly by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) and the Guangdong Provincial Association for Science and Technology, the Global AI Challenge took place from June to August 2025, attracting over 200 teams from 26 countries and regions. This year’s event featured two sub-themed competitions — “Build Your AI Model” and “Innovative Proposal for Construction and Engineering” — encouraging participants to apply AI to enhance efficiency, sustainability, and safety in building and engineering projects. The award ceremony was held on 8 August 2025 in Hong Kong, where teams gathered to celebrate innovation in AI and engineering.

The CDS team’s innovative AI solution showcased exceptional scalability and technical excellence, earning recognition from a judging panel of experts from academic institutions in building and computer science, as well as industry leaders, including Huawei. The solution’s potential impact on utilising AI for building cooling load prediction and energy savings during the operational phase was particularly noteworthy.

This achievement not only showcases the talent and dedication of our students and researchers, but also highlights the School’s commitment to advancing interdisciplinary applications of AI for the benefit of society.

For event details, please visit: globalaichallenge.com/en/home/.

Congratulations once again to our CDS team on this outstanding accomplishment!