News

DSAI Welcomes New Students at Orientation Sessions

The Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) recently hosted a series of orientation sessions to welcome new students to its undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. These sessions provided valuable information, guidance, and a warm introduction to the DSAI community. The orientation for BSc (Hons) Scheme in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence students took place on 29 August 2025. The session began with a welcoming speech by Prof. CHEN Changwen, Interim Dean of the Faculty of Computing and Mathematics Sciences, followed by remarks from Prof. TAN Kay Chen, Head of DSAI, who expressed his excitement for the new academic year and encouraged students to make the most of their university experience. Prof. JIANG Binyan, Associate Head (Teaching) and Scheme Leader, then introduced the Department and the curriculum. Meetings with Programme Leaders, Deputy Programme Leaders, and Academic Advisors were also held, ensuring students were well-prepared for their academic journey. The orientation for the MSc in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data (MScAIBD) programme was held on 2 September 2025, while the orientation for the MSc in Data Science and Analytics (MScDSA) programme took place on 3 September 2025. At both sessions, Prof. TAN Kay Chen welcomed the new students and encouraged them to embrace the opportunities and challenges of the coming academic year. Each orientation featured a comprehensive programme briefing—delivered by Prof. Korris CHUNG for MScAIBD and Prof. QI Houduo for MScDSA—covering the programme structure and available resources. Students also received practical advice on studying at PolyU and living in Hong Kong, with special guidance to help international students acclimate to their new environment. The orientation sessions marked an important milestone for new students, equipping them with essential information and connecting them with faculty and peers. With each new cohort, the department strengthens its commitment to excellence in teaching, research, and innovation, and continues to build a strong network among students, faculty, and alumni.

(Register Now) Ctrl+Z for GenAI: Undoing What Models Learn and Teaching them What “Not” Means

You are cordially invited to attend the DSAI seminar by Prof. Mayank Vatsa on “Ctrl+Z for GenAI: Undoing What Models Learn and Teaching them What “Not” Means” with details as follows:   Date: 12 Sep 2025 (Fri) Time: 14:30 - 15:30 Venue: Z211, PolyU If you are interested, please register at: https://polyu.hk/FXkMe  (Registration Deadline: 8 Sep 2025)   For enquiry, please contact us at dsai.enquiry@polyu.edu.hk. We look forward to seeing you at the seminar!   Best regards, Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence

(Register Now) Towards training large-scale high-performance spiking neural networks (SNNs): challenges and advances

You are cordially invited to attend the DSAI seminar by Prof. Huajin Tang on “Towards training large-scale high-performance spiking neural networks (SNNs): challenges and advances” with details as follows: Date: 1 Sep 2025 (Mon) Time: 14:00 - 15:00 Venue: FJ302, PolyU If you are interested, please register at: https://polyu.hk/qZyZH  (Registration Deadline: 31 Aug 2025) For enquiry, please contact us at dsai.enquiry@polyu.edu.hk. We look forward to seeing you at the seminar!

Prof. TAN Kay Chen Awarded the 2026 IEEE CIS Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award

Professor TAN Kay Chen, Head of the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and Chair Professor of Computational Intelligence, has been awarded the prestigious 2026 IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award — one of the highest global honors in the field of evolutionary computation. This accolade recognizes Prof. TAN’s groundbreaking and long-standing contributions to advancing evolutionary computation, particularly in addressing uncertain and complex optimization problems. The IEEE CIS Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award is a highly esteemed international distinction, bestowed annually upon individuals or groups whose pioneering achievements have profoundly shaped the discipline of evolutionary computation. Prof. TAN’s recognition not only underscores his visionary leadership and sustained excellence in evolutionary computation but also highlights his influential role in bridging theoretical advances with transformative engineering applications.  The official award ceremony will take place at a flagship IEEE CIS conference in 2026, where Prof. TAN will be honored before an international audience of leading experts and pioneers in the field. The DSAI community offers its warmest congratulations to Prof. TAN on this achievement. For more details about the IEEE CIS Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award, please visit: https://cis.ieee.org/awards/ieeecis-awards

Welcome On Board – Senior Teaching Fellow Dr FONG Chi Kit Ken

We are pleased to announce that Dr FONG Chi Kit Ken has joined the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) as a Senior Teaching Fellow on 18 August 2025. Dr FONG previously served as an Assistant Professor of Teaching at Lingnan University and as an Assistant Professor at Chu Hai College of Higher Education. He received the Merit Award (Team) for Teaching at Lingnan University in 2023/24. He holds a BSc and Ph.D. in Computer Science from City University of Hong Kong, and was a visiting student at Kyushu University’s Multi-Agent Laboratory in 2016. Dr FONG’s research interests include Artificial Intelligence in Education, Algorithmic Mechanism Design within Social Choice Theory, and resource allocation problems. Please join us in warmly welcoming Dr FONG Chi Kit Ken to DSAI.

DSAI Team Wins First Place in AgentX International Competition

A team from the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) (comprising Ph.D. student Mr HUANG Beichen, Prof. CHENG Ran, and Prof. TAN Kay Chen) has achieved a remarkable milestone by winning first place globally in the Multi-Agent Systems track of the prestigious AgentX International Competition. The event, hosted by the University of California, Berkeley, and supported by leading technology companies such as Google, Amazon, and Hugging Face, is one of the most prominent global platforms for advancing Large Language Model (LLM) agent technologies.   Overview of the the AgentX - LLM Agents MOOC Competition (Spring 2025)   The competition attracted nearly 1,000 teams from over 100 countries and 800 universities worldwide, including institutions such as UC Berkeley, Stanford, and CMU. After multiple rounds of rigorous evaluation by a judging panel composed of 28 experts from Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR, Nvidia, and other top-tier organizations, only 15 teams advanced to the final on-site Demo Day. The DSAI team was the only representative from China and emerged as the First Place in the most technically demanding category with their pioneering project, EvoGit.   EvoGit constructs the evolutionary process of code as a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), on which multiple agents collaboratively evolve and continuously develop.   EvoGit is a decentralized multi-agent framework that reimagines software development as a continuously evolving process rather than a static task. It models the development lifecycle as a directed acyclic graph (DAG) of Git commits, where multiple agents independently propose small code changes or structural crossovers and collaborate without relying on central schedulers or explicit communication protocols. This architecture enables self-organizing agent behavior, leading to a scalable and resilient development process. Built on standard Git infrastructure, EvoGit also supports seamless human-agent collaboration, allowing developers to inspect, intervene, and interact with the system using familiar version control tools.     📣For more information, please visit: 🧬 EvoGit Paper (arXiv) 💻 EvoGit Open Source Repository

Welcome On Board – Teaching Fellow Dr LIAO Weihang

We are delighted to welcome Dr LIAO Weihang, who has joined the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) as a Teaching Fellow on 1 August 2025. Dr LIAO was previously a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Health Technology and Informatics at PolyU. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Engineering from Wuhan University, China, as well as a second Master’s from the National Institute of Informatics, Japan, and a Doctorate from Tokyo Institute of Technology. Dr LIAO’s research interests include medical image reconstruction and compression. He has published in leading conferences and journals such as CVPR, MICCAI, and TPAMI, and is a recipient of the JSPS-DC2 research fellowship. Please join us in warmly welcoming Dr LIAO Weihang to DSAI.

Interview Coverage - Prof. KUMAR Ajay Featured in IEEE Biometrics Council Newsletter

Prof. KUMAR Ajay, Associate Head (Research) of the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI), has been featured in the June 2025 issue of the IEEE Biometrics Council Newsletter. In an in-depth interview conducted by Editor-in-Chief Prof. Andrew Teoh, Prof. KUMAR reflects on his pioneering journey in hand-based biometrics over the years. The interview highlights Prof. KUMAR’s groundbreaking contributions to contactless palmprint, palm-vein, finger-vein, and 3D fingerprint recognition technologies. He discusses the evolution of biometric systems from ink-based impressions to advanced contactless solutions, emphasizing the importance of algorithmic innovation, privacy-preserving techniques, and interdisciplinary collaboration. His insights into future directions—including federated learning, multispectral sensing, and synthetic data generation—underscore his continued leadership in shaping the field. Prof. KUMAR’s feature in this prestigious publication is a testament to his global impact and dedication to advancing biometric research. You may read the Newsletter on the IEEE website (subscribers only), or you may read the interview at the link below: BIOMETRIC PIONEERS: Ajay Kumar 

Prof. TAN Kay Chen Honoured as RGC Senior Research Fellow

Prof. TAN Kay Chen, Head of Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and Chair Professor of Computational Intelligence, has been honoured as Senior Research Fellow under the Research Grants Council (RGC) Senior Research Fellow Scheme (SRFS) 2025/26. This esteemed fellowship recognises Prof. TAN’s outstanding research achievements and his significant contributions to the field of artificial intelligence. Prof. TAN’s SRFS project, titled “Towards adaptive pretrained vision-language foundation models for medical image analysis,” will develop an integrated intelligent interpretation system to provide personalised and human-centric healthcare, featuring several functionalities such as visual question answering, radiology reports analysis, and computer-aided diagnosis. It aims to improve the quality of healthcare services, ease strain on medical resources, and solidify Hong Kong’s leadership in AI-powered healthcare innovation. SRFS aims to provide sustained support to exceptionally outstanding researchers at the University Grants Committee-funded universities in Hong Kong. The scheme provides ten grants to scholars from any academic disciplines, with funding support for a period of 60 months. The supporting university will receive a fellowship grant of around HK$8.2 million per award for SRFS projects. Congratulations to Prof. TAN for this esteemed recognition, and we look forward to the impactful advancements his research will bring to the field of artificial intelligence and healthcare.  

Welcome On Board – Assistant Professor and Presidential Young Scholar, Professor YANG Xingyi

We would like to extend a warm welcome to Professor YANG Xingyi, who has joined the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) as an Assistant Professor under the Presidential Young Scholar Scheme, effective 2 July 2025. Professor YANG received his PhD from the National University of Singapore; Master’s from the University of California San Diego, U.S., and Bachelor’s from Southeast University, China. During his PhD, he was also a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford. Professor YANG’s research interests include artificial intelligence, generative AI, and multi-modal learning. He has published extensively in leading journals and conferences in these fields and has been recognized with numerous honors. He received a Best Paper Honorable Mention at NeurIPS 2022, a nomination for the WAIC Outstanding Youth Paper Award in 2024, and the 2023 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad.