Standing amongst products from global technology giants, a PolyU academic-led startup claimed one of Asia’s most coveted innovation honours last month. InfiX.ai, founded by Professor Yang Hongxia, Executive Director of the PolyU Academy for Artificial Intelligence (PAAI), won the BEYOND Best of Innovation Awards 2026 for InfiCube—an integrated AI appliance that keeps sensitive corporate data secure while delivering cutting-edge machine learning capabilities. The achievement proves that academic research can compete at the highest levels of commercial technology.

The top-notch award, presented at the BEYOND Expo 2026 in Macao, represents the highest accolade within the BEYOND Innovation Awards. InfiCube stood alongside products from renowned global technology companies, marking significant international industry acknowledgement of PolyU’s commercialisation capabilities in enterprise-grade AI infrastructure.

Mr Kyle Lin, Product Director of InfiX.ai, receiving the award on behalf of the company at BEYOND Expo 2026.

Bridging academic excellence and market reality

InfiCube addresses a critical challenge facing enterprises in the AI-native era on how to deploy powerful AI systems whilst maintaining data security and cost control. The appliance provides an integrated hardware-software infrastructure covering everything from model training and fine-tuning to inference deployment and continuous optimisation.

What sets InfiCube apart is its approach to data security. The entire system operates within localised deployment environments, ensuring sensitive enterprise data never leaves private networks. This design, combined with built-in permission management and audit capabilities, makes it particularly suitable for industries with stringent compliance requirements.

Professor Yang, who is also Vobile Group Professor in Generative Artificial Intelligence, Associate Dean (Global Engagement) of the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, and Chair Professor of Generative AI at the Department of Computing, participated in a panel discussion on “The AI-Native Enterprise: Architecting B2B Intelligence for the Global Stage”, where she explored how low-bit training, private deployment and next-generation AI infrastructure enable reliable large-model deployment in business-to-business scenarios with other panellists.

Prof. Yang Hongxia (2nd from left) participated in a panel discussion themed “The AI-Native Enterprise: Architecting B2B Intelligence for the Global Stage” on the last day of BEYOND Expo 2026.

Translating research into impactful solutions

The recognition reflects Professor Yang’s distinctive approach to AI research. Her work encompasses large models, model fusion, and intelligent industry applications, with a particular focus on Collaborative Generative AI (Co-GenAI). This paradigm shifts AI training from traditional centralised approaches to decentralised ones, significantly lowering resource requirements whilst protecting data privacy.

Her research has attracted substantial support from both government and industry. Her project “Reallm: World-leading Enterprise GenAI Infrastructure Solution” has been funded under the Research, Academic and Industry Sectors One-plus (RAISe+) Scheme of the Innovation and Technology Commission of the HKSAR Government. Her pioneering project “Collaborative Generative AI (Co-GenAI)” has received funding from the Theme-based Research Scheme 2025/26 under the Research Grants Council. InfiX.ai has also obtained the highest funding ratio under Cyberport’s Artificial Intelligence Subsidy Scheme.

Professor Zheng Zijian, Vice President (Knowledge Transfer), commended the achievement, “This distinguished performance fully demonstrates our comprehensive strengths in fundamental AI research, technological innovation and knowledge transfer. Through our holistic startup ecosystem PolyVentures, we provide all-round support to research teams and entrepreneurs, facilitating the translation of research into market-ready solutions.”

Building Hong Kong’s knowledge transfer ecosystem

The success exemplifies PolyU’s broader commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship. Through PolyVentures, the University has nurtured over 600 active startups, including two listed companies, three unicorns and 26 ponies. This ecosystem connects research with industry needs, advancing the adoption of AI and emerging technologies across sectors.

As Hong Kong strengthens its position as an international innovation and technology hub, PolyU continues to deepen collaboration across government, industry, academia, and research sectors, ensuring cutting-edge technologies translate into impactful applications that serve Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area and the Nation.