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Shanghai Jiao Tong University Delegation Visits SCRI for In-Depth Exchange on Smart Cities and Digital Transformation

The PolyU Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI) was pleased to host a distinguished delegation from Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU) on 9 September 2025. The delegation, consisting of 2 faculty leaders and 23 high-achieving undergraduate students, visited SCRI to engage in meaningful academic exchange and explore advancements in smart city development and digital transformation. During the visit, SCRI researchers presented a comprehensive overview of the institute’s strategic projects and technological innovations. Key highlights included cutting-edge research in Urban Informatics, the application of Mobile Mapping Systems, the development of Digital Twins for urban planning, and the integration of Smart City technologies aimed at addressing complex urban challenges. The session provided valuable insights into how technology and innovation can be harnessed to create sustainable and efficient urban environments. The delegation participated in dynamic discussions, sharing perspectives and experiences related to smart city implementation and digital transformation. These exchanges fostered a mutually beneficial dialogue, strengthening collaborative ties between SJTU and SCRI while inspiring new ideas for future research and innovation. This visit underscores SCRI’s commitment to promoting knowledge exchange and building international partnerships in the pursuit of smarter, more resilient cities.

SCRI & ISUI hosts Global Smart Cities Summit cum the 4th International Conference on Urban Informatics and unveils Smart City Index 2025

Global Smart Cities Summit cum the 4th International Conference on Urban Informatics, co-organised by the Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and the International Society for Urban Informatics (ISUI) concluded at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), uniting over 600 experts, government officials, industry leaders, and innovators from 20+ countries and attracting 110,000+ online viewers globally. The conference also brings together over 240 speakers from around the world to share cutting-edge insights and innovations in urban informatics and smart city development. During the event, a PolyU research team announced the Smart City Index, which aims to help cities worldwide formulate sustainable development strategies. Prof. Jin-Guang TENG, PolyU President said, “Pressing urban challenges — from energy insecurity and global warming to ageing populations and land shortages — demand innovative thinking and multifaceted solutions. As one of PolyU’s strategic innovation domains, smart cities have long been a focus of research, encompassing big data analytics, remote sensing, geomatics computing, and other cutting-edge disciplines. Through SCRI under the PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research (PAIR), we will further integrate interdisciplinary research capabilities to drive sustainable development in Hong Kong and cities worldwide.” Dr Stephen WONG Yuen-shan, Head of the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit of the HKSAR Government said, “Hong Kong has always valued and continuously leveraged its role as a ‘super connector’ and ‘super value-adder’ status as an international city. The Conference is a perfect demonstration of our ongoing efforts to promote knowledge exchange and collaboration with international peers. The Smart City Index developed by PolyU research team also gives us good insight into best practices of how cities around the world serve the lived experiences, needs and wellbeing of its citizens.” The Conference aims to advance global smart city development and urban informatics to provide a scientific foundation for smart cities. By integrating urban science, geographic information science and computer science, urban informatics leverages its interdisciplinary advantage to develop innovative solutions for addressing complex urban challenges. The Conference features keynote speeches by internationally renowned scientists, forums with government and industry leaders, and innovation and technology exhibitions. The event serves as an excellent platform to foster collaborations among government, industry, academia, and research sectors in the field of smart cities. SCRI and ISUI also jointly announced the ISUI Smart City Index 2025, developed by a team led by Prof. John Wenzhong SHI, Director of SCRI, Chair Professor of Geographical Information Science and Remote Sensing, and President of ISUI. The Index utilises a human-centric evaluation framework, comprising six dimensions — citizen, environment, social landscape, economy, infrastructure and governance, across 97 indicators. With a focus on how smart city initiatives enhance the daily lives of citizens, the Index empowers cities around the globe to assess their progress and enables authorities to better formulate strategies for a smarter and more sustainable future. Conventional smart city assessments typically emphasise the priorities of advanced economies and tend to rely on restricted data. In contrast, the Smart City Index adopts an inclusive approach applicable to cities across all development stages – from advanced, to developing and emerging economies, and utilises only publicly available data. This broader perspective enables more relevant and effective policy formulation worldwide. The Index assessed 73 cities worldwide, with the top 10 ranked cities being Stockholm, Washington, D.C., Barcelona, London, Tokyo, Zurich, New York, Hong Kong, Copenhagen, and Oslo. Hong Kong ranked eighth globally and second in Asia, outperforming major regional competitors such as Singapore, as well as key cities in Europe and North America. Notably, Hong Kong excelled in the dimensions of environment, economy, and governance. In addition, the Conference will host presentation of the Outstanding Achievement Award in Urban Informatics, the Smart City Technology Innovation Awards, the Paper of the Year Award for ISUI’s journal Urban Informatics, and the Best Conference Paper and Presentation Award. Details of the Conference: https://www.isocui.org/icui2025 Full report of the Smart City Index 2025: https://www.isocui.org/smart_city_index Conference Photos: https://www.isocui.org/icui2025/about/photo

Prof. SHI Wenzhong on Smart City Index in RTHK programmes

Prof. John SHI Wenzhong, Director of Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI), Chair Professor of Geographical Information Science and Remote Sensing, and President of the International Society for Urban Informatics, was interviewed by RTHK’s radio programmes “Hong Kong Today” and “Open Line Open View” to elaborate on the “Smart City Index”. Developed by Prof. Shi and his team, the index aims to help cities worldwide formulate sustainable smart city development strategies. Hong Kong was named second-highest performing Asian city in the rankings at eighth place.   Online coverage: RTHK Hong Kong Today - https://polyu.me/3UlPgO9 (40:28 - 44:01) RTHK Open Line Open View - https://polyu.me/4foflFS (1:06:30 - 1:16:17)

PAIR & SCRI Distinguished Lecture on Uncertainty posed by AI: Geospatial science pioneer Prof. Michael GOODCHILD dissects past, present and future

Geospatial data finds applications in a wide array of fields, including urban planning, environmental management, disaster response, and transportation, leveraging spatial patterns to support decision-making in various sectors.  Nevertheless, errors, imprecision, and complexities in datasets containing information about space and/or time can undermine the quality and reliability of spatial data and analyses.  This issue of uncertainty in geospatial science (GIS) is expected to intensify as AI-driven geospatial applications become increasingly widespread, according to Prof. Michael GOODCHILD, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. On 1 August 2025 (Friday), Prof. Goodchild gave the 42nd PAIR Distinguished Lecture on the topic of “Geospatial Futures”.  Joined by 76 in-person participants and an online audience of 15,310, the Lecture reviewed the key developments and legacy practices in the evolution of GIS, revealing the forthcoming directions and future prospects in the field.  In the Lecture, Prof. Goodchild briefly introduced the history of GIS, discussing how innovations in areas including measurements, naming conventions, computing, global positioning system (GPS) and locating-measuring technologies have combined to propel the development of GIS. According to Prof. Goodchild, the explosion of data and diffusion of advanced technologies, including machine learning, generative AI and digital twins in the modern era, would present multiple new technical problems to GIScience, including geographic bias, transparency of machine learning, environmental cost, and uncertainty in predictions, challenging the fitness-for-use of geographic systems built.  In the Lecture, he emphasised a new direction for GIS: the achievement of more powerful and cheaper computation for finer-resolution data, better models, machine learning and 3D photorealism.  In illustrating the importance of computational breakthroughs for GIS, he shared several compelling examples of digital twin models that give virtual representations of physical landscapes such as volcanoes, coastal regions and urban environments.  In closing his presentation, Prof. Goodchild drew attention to the ethics of GIS, remarking that “while software developers are maximising the use of general-purpose GIS packages, the public should exercise responsibility in using the software appropriately and repurposing it.” Prof. Goodchild is a Senior Fellow at PAIR, and Chairman of the International Advisory Committee of the Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI). Please click here for an online review.  

SCRI scholars honoured as RGC Senior Research Fellow in recognition of outstanding research achievements

Prof. TAN Kay Chen, Head of the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Chair Professor of Computational Intelligence, and Member of the Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI), has been awarded fellowships under the Research Grants Council’s (RGC) Senior Research Fellow Scheme (SRFS) and Research Fellow Scheme (RFS) 2025/26, in recognition of their outstanding research achievements in the fields of biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence, and advanced materials. Prof. Tan’s project, “Towards adaptive pretrained vision-language foundation models for medical image analysis”, aims to develop an integrated intelligent interpretation system to provide personalised and human-centric healthcare, featuring several functionalities such as visual question answering, radiology reports and computer-aided diagnosis. Press release: https://polyu.me/44KjwrY   Online coverage: Dot Dot News – https://polyu.me/419eoeA (Chinese only) hkong.hk – https://polyu.me/46VZ2hh (Chinese only)

SCRI Distinguished Lecture on Domain-Specific Acceleration Targeting AI for Science was held successfully on 8 July 2025

  The Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI) successfully hosted a Distinguished Lecture on 8 July 2025, focusing on the cutting-edge field of "Domain-Specific Acceleration Targeting AI for Science". The event featured the internationally renowned Professor Wayne Luk from Imperial College London, UK, drawing an engaged audience of over 60 participants.   The lecture explored the critical role of domain-specific acceleration in advancing computer system design. He emphasized that tailoring hardware accelerators to specific computational tasks is fundamental to unlocking the full potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly for demanding scientific workloads. This customisation enables the adoption of sophisticated AI techniques across diverse application domains.   Illustrating this concept with groundbreaking work, Professor Luk detailed his team's collaboration with high-energy physics researchers at CERN. He presented the development of ultra-low-latency deep learning accelerator architectures designed for the extreme conditions of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments. A highlight was the introduction of a bespoke Graph Neural Network (GNN) accelerator capable of achieving sub-microsecond latency. This breakthrough performance is crucial for real-time event selection within the LHC's Level-1 trigger systems, where decisions must be made in billionths of a second. Furthermore, Professor Luk discussed ongoing efforts to streamline the creation of such specialized accelerators using meta-programming techniques, aiming to automate and expedite the development process for future scientific AI applications.   The lecture concluded with a dynamic Q&A session, fostering insightful discussion between attendees and Professor Luk on the challenges and future directions of domain-specific acceleration for scientific AI.  

SCRI Research Seminar on GIScience in structuring compact service areas, districts and regions was hosted successfully on 21 May 2025

The Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI) successfully hosted a research seminar on 21 May 2025, on the topic of "GIScience in Structuring Compact Service Areas, Districts and Regions". The seminar featured Professor Alan Murray from the University of California at Santa Barbara, USA. During the seminar, Prof. Murray discussed how compactness influences various aspects of urban form, including trade, service provision, and political representation. Prof. Murray also addressed the theoretical frameworks and practical challenges faced by GISciences in analyzing and enhancing compactness. His insights highlighted the importance of spatial analysis tools in identifying optimal configurations for service areas that can lead to more efficient urban environments. The seminar concluded with a Q&A session, where attendees engaged with Prof. Murray on the implications of his research for future urban development and policy strategies. The SCRI looks forward to continuing discussions on the vital role of GIScience in shaping sustainable and efficient cities.

DoSCRI shares low-altitude economy and sustainable development in urban informatics in newspaper

Prof. John SHI Wenzhong, Director of Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI), Director of PolyU–Shenzhen Technology and Innovation Research Institute (Futian), Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Professor in Urban Informatics and Chair Professor of Geographical Information Science and Remote Sensing, pointed out in a recent interview with Southern Metropolis Daily that smart city development must integrate technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, big data and geospatial information technology, and leverage drones and artificial intelligence (AI) in driving low-altitude economy, thereby enhancing cities’ urban perceptions and governance efficiencies.   Prof. Shi stressed that the development of urban informatics can benefit from the interdisciplinary integration of urban science, computer science and geomatics, and the construction of cross-sectoral common spatial data infrastructure. He suggested drawing on Hong Kong’s successful experience in developing the Common Spatial Data Infrastructure Portal and building a similar platform for the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area with Shenzhen being the starting point, thereby optimising resource utilisation, enabling refined smart city management and driving the region’s sustainable development. Online coverage:   NetEase - https://polyu.me/4lCoNYT Sohu - https://polyu.me/42k6gJ  

SCRI Research Salon Showcases Interdisciplinary Innovations in Smart Cities

On 11 April 2025, the Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI) hosted its Research Salon, featuring presentations from PIs funded through the SCRI Interdisciplinary Research Fund in Smart Cities (IRF-SC). This salon provided a platform for SCRI researchers to share their groundbreaking achievements and engage in meaningful discussions about the future of smart urban development.   The SCRI IRF-SC projects included: Prof. CHUNG Edward (EEE): Urban Platoon Eco-Driving Advisory upon Unreliable Wireless Communications Prof. HO Ivan (EEE): A Virtual V2X-aided Advanced Driver Assistance System Prof. LU Haitian (AF): Bank Branch, Digital Transformation, and Performance: Evidence from Spatial Panel Data on Mobile Banking APP Usage Prof. TONG Wilson (AF): Real Estate Tokenization in Hong Kong   SCRI members had the opportunity to explore innovative solutions that enhance urban living, with a focus on mobility and economic transformation.  

SCRI Research Salon Enhances Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Smart Environment and Economy

12 March 2025 – The Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI) successfully hosted its third Research Salon, bringing SCRI member to explore cutting-edge research in SCRI’s key focus areas: Smart Environment and Smart Economy. The salon served as a dynamic platform for SCRI members to share their latest findings, exchange innovative ideas, and foster interdisciplinary collaboration.   The session featured a series of thought-provoking presentations, each offering unique insights into emerging research areas. Highlights included discussions on Shaping Future Environments: Earth Observation, AI, and Climate, innovative approaches to Energy Consumption in Water Systems for Buildings, and advancements in Noise Reduction through Ventilation Technologies, as well as Geographic Entities in driving sustainable urban development.   SCRI Research Salon not only deepened the understanding of critical issues in smart environments and economies but also strengthened connections among researchers, paving the way for future collaborative projects. SCRI remains committed to advancing interdisciplinary research and innovation to address the complex challenges of modern urban living.