Chinese mainland artificial intelligence firm Zhongke WengAI announced on Friday it is joining forces with Hong Kong tech enterprise Cherrypicks to accelerate AI applications in a range of fields, a development that is expected to fuel Hong Kong’s drive to become a global innovation and technology hub.
Under the strategic partnership, Cherrypicks will serve as Zhongke WengAI's exclusive commercialization partner outside the mainland, with the latter supplying core technologies to enable joint development and deployment of AI solutions customized for such sectors as enterprise services, public administration, finance and healthcare.
“As an international gateway for innovation with a multilingual environment, Hong Kong is strategically significant for our company’s overseas expansion,” Waley Wang, chairman and founder of Zhongke WengAI, said during the ceremony marking the collaboration in Hong Kong on Friday.
“On the one hand, Hong Kong has an internationalized business environment; on the other, it has close ties to the mainland’s strong AI research and development capabilities. Besides, the city has supportive policies for tech innovation and serves as an international financial hub, which further strengthens its position as a launchpad for our global expansion.”
The company is looking to provide AI services across Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East, Wang added.
ALSO READ: Chan: HK aims to be global innovation hub with AI at core
Incubated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Automation, Zhongke WengAI developed the YaYi foundation model — a domain-adaptive, multimodal large model with leading capabilities in semantic understanding, reasoning and decision-making.
According to the company, the model has provided AI solutions for thousands of clients in sectors including finance, media, healthcare and scientific research.
“By combining our strengths in AI deployment, mobile technologies and cross-border services, we will develop intelligent products tailored to local and international needs, foster a healthy AI ecosystem in Hong Kong and help enterprises seize new opportunities in the intelligent era,” said Kenny Chien, CEO of Cherrypicks.
The collaboration comes at a time when Hong Kong is pulling out all stops to promote the innovation and technology industry, with AI as one of its core focuses. In his 2025-26 Budget, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said HK$1 billion ($128 million) has been earmarked for the establishment of the Hong Kong Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Institute to spearhead and support Hong Kong's innovative research and development and the industrial application of AI, as well as to facilitate upstream R&D, midstream and downstream transformation of R&D outcomes, and application scenarios.
Simon Leung, vice-chairman of Hong Kong-listed NetDragon, the parent company of Cherrypicks, said the collaboration exemplifies the convergence of the mainland’s AI “go global” strategy with Hong Kong’s innovation strengths.
READ MORE: HK calls for regional AI collaboration to boost trade
“As a bridge between the mainland and international markets, Cherrypicks will leverage synergies to bring leading AI technologies such as the ‘YaYi’ large language model to Hong Kong and overseas, powering smart city development and industry upgrades, and further cementing Hong Kong’s position as an international innovation hub.”
