Yang Jiankun, assistant director of Pengcheng Lab; Gao Wen, director of Pengcheng Lab; Nancy Ip Yuk-yu, president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; and Guo Yike, provost of HKUST, attend the signing ceremony for an agreement for joint PhD programs at HKUST. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Pengcheng Laboratory, a key research facility in Shenzhen, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology recently signed an agreement for joint PhD programs and plan to initiate the enrolment of the first batch of doctoral students this year.

A delegation of the lab’s experts last month visited the University of Hong Kong and HKUST, aiming to expand academic exchanges and strengthen collaborative efforts in talent development.

At HKUST, Yang Jiankun, assistant director of Pengcheng Lab, and Guo Yike, provost of HKUST, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective institutions

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At HKUST, Yang Jiankun, assistant director of Pengcheng Lab, and Guo Yike, provost of HKUST, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective institutions. Gao Wen, director of Pengcheng Lab, and Nancy Ip Yuk-yu, president of HKUST, also attended the signing ceremony. The collaborative effort is set to commence enrolment of the first group of doctoral students this year, as both parties strive to advance talent development in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

In addition, the lab also inked a strategic cooperation agreement with HKU during its visit to the university’s Faculty of Engineering and participated in interactive communication with teacher and student representatives.

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The lab focuses on the research of network information, artificial intelligence, cyberspace security, etc. It also has set up joint PhD programs with prestigious universities such as Peking University and Tsinghua University, as well as in-depth collaborations with over 150 universities, research institutions, and leading enterprises nationwide. It has jointly launched the Pengcheng Cloud Brain project with Huawei to provide supercomputing for basic research and development in the AI field.