PolyU hosts flagship IEEE ICDE 2025, gathering data engineering experts from around the globe to inject new vitality into Hong Kong I&T ecosystems

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) hosted the 41st IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE) from 19 to 23 May. A premier academic event in the field of data science and engineering, the Conference brought together nearly 900 leading scholars, industry experts and researchers from around the globe to explore cutting-edge topics, advancing innovation in artificial intelligence (AI), big data and other emerging technologies in the field.

The five-day conference featured a series of events sparking discussion and fostering exchanges among participants, including keynote speeches, thematic panels, academic paper presentations, doctoral student seminars, poster sessions, special lectures and workshops. Hosted by representatives from academia and industry, these events shed light on a range of timely issues and current topics such as data management, data mining, data visualisation and AI.

Prof. Jin-Guang TENG, President of PolyU, delivered a warm welcoming address at the opening ceremony, highlighting the increasing global interest in data science, data engineering and AI. He emphasised PolyU’s positioning as an innovative world-class university and its commitment to meeting the evolving demands of society. The University has integrated compulsory AI education into the undergraduate curriculum and established the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences earlier this year. He also introduced the newly established PolyU Academy for Artificial Intelligence, which is under the leadership of a prestigious scholar with extensive industrial experience and will further promote AI research and applications.

Three internationally renowned scholars, Prof. Amr El ABBADI, Distinguished Professor of the Computer Science Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Prof. Guoliang LI, Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University; and Prof. Evaggelia PITOURA, Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Ioannina, Greece, delivered keynote speeches at the Conference. They focused on significant facets of data engineering and discussed emerging topics including stream summarisation for big data analytics, the integration of large language models in data analytics systems and responsible AI.

Supported by the Hong Kong Tourism Board as well as a number of world-leading enterprises, including Huawei, Alibaba Cloud, Baidu AI Cloud, ByteDance, Tencent Cloud, OceanBase and UniCom, the Conference promoted innovative application of data science and AI technologies by fostering collaboration among industry, academia and research agencies in diversified forms. It also deepened international academic cooperation and injected vitality into local technological innovation ecosystem, consolidating Hong Kong’s position as an international innovation and technology hub.

To ensure academic quality, the Organisation Committee comprised outstanding academics and industry experts from around the world. Among them were several scholars from PolyU, including Prof. LI Qing, Chair Professor of Data Science and Head of the Department of Computing, who served as the Co-Chair to oversee the overall organisation of the event; Prof. HUA Wen, Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, who supervised the paper review process; Prof. FAN Wenqi, Assistant Professor of the Department of Computing, who was in charge of local arrangements; Prof. HUANG Xiao, Assistant Professor of the Department of Computing, who managed the doctoral consortium; and Dr Alexander ZHOU, Research Assistant Professor of the Department of Computing, who was responsible for paper publication and agenda management.

Since its inception in 1984, ICDE has been a flagship academic event in the global data science and engineering field, dedicated to advancing the frontier theories and practical applications of data management technologies. It has witnessed the era transition from relational databases to cloud-native technologies, and continuously led data-driven innovations globally.

For more information about ICDE 2025, please visit: https://ieee-icde.org/2025/

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