Professor Au’s research has had profound global impact. His team won two international ZPrize competitions: the 2022 Open Division Plonk-DIZK GPU Acceleration challenge (US$550,000) and the 2023 High Throughput Signature Verification challenge (US$500,000; tied championship, with US$250,000 awarded). These achievements showcase world-leading advances that push the boundaries of blockchain privacy, efficiency and scalability. His work has attracted over HK$50 million in research and consultancy funding, and he has been consistently listed among Stanford University’s World’s Top 2% Scientists for both single-year and career-long impact.
A prolific researcher with more than 200 peer-reviewed publications in premier venues such as CRYPTO, ASIACRYPT, ACM CCS, NDSS, IEEE S&P, SIGMOD and SOSP, Professor Au has significantly shaped the design of modern cryptographic systems. His digital signature technology has been adopted by Hyperledger Fabric, a flagship blockchain infrastructure supported by IBM, Intel and SAP. He also contributed to the design of Aurum 2.0, a next-generation retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) prototype with an enhanced privacy-focused architecture, jointly developed by the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).
Professor Au also plays an active role in international standardisation and policy formulation. He is a founding member of the HKMA CBDC Expert Group and an expert member of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 Working Group 2 on cryptography and security mechanisms. He serves as Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing and sits on the editorial boards of leading journals in cybersecurity and blockchain technology. Within the University, he has been recognised with two faculty-level honours: the Faculty of Engineering Research Grant Achievement Award 2021 and the Individual Award in Research and Scholarly Activities of the Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2025.
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