Hong Kong is advancing an “AI for all” initiative to integrate artificial intelligence across society, including an allocation of HK$50 million for public awareness and skills-building through AI courses, seminars, and competitions on responsible use. The Employees Retraining Board will be rebranded as “Upskill Hong Kong” to offer skills-based AI training for workforce competitiveness. Industry leaders like Keith Li King-wah of Innopage have been adapting to the technology ahead of these government efforts, which also involve a major overhaul of school curricula and vocational retraining.
In the second installment of a South China Morning Post series, Oscar Liu examines how Hong Kong society—from government and companies to institutions and individuals—is scrambling to embrace AI as work itself gets redefined.
Keith Li King-wah’s programming consultancy, Innopage, once thrived in the 2010s. In a crowded field of more than 100 rivals, it easily secured contracts worth hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong dollars to develop basic digital tools, such as a mortgage calculator, for corporations and government agencies.
Li is among a wave of industry leaders scrambling to outpace the new technology long before the government pivoted towards an “AI for all” initiative, alongside a massive overhaul of school curricula and vocational retraining.
As part of this initiative, HK$50 million (US$6.4 million) will be allocated to build public awareness and skills through AI courses, seminars, and competitions focused on responsible use.
To support the current workforce, the Employees Retraining Board will be rebranded as “Upskill Hong Kong”, focusing on providing skills-based AI training to enhance local competitiveness.
This push reflects Hong Kong’s urgency in addressing AI-driven changes to work within the Greater Bay Area context, though specific applications of tools like Microsoft, DALL-E, and OpenAI mentioned in keywords are not detailed in the provided text.
