The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s artificial intelligence ambitions are no longer just on paper. AI-related initial public offerings raised nearly HK$100 billion ($12.75 billion) from December to May — some 55 percent of total IPO proceeds, according to Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po — while computing infrastructure is being planned across the Northern Metropolis. But beneath the fundraising headlines lie some harder questions that will determine whether these ambitions endure: Where will the clean energy come from, and how should Hong Kong govern the transition?
Start with the AI energy paradox. Training and running large AI models devours electricity. Data centers already occupy some 970,000 square meters of floor space in Hong Kong and rank among the city’s fastest-growing power consumers — a footprint set to expand dramatically as mega-facilities such as the Sandy Ridge data park break ground. Yet AI is also the most powerful energy-saving tool humanity has ever built: The International Energy Agency estimates that its wide application could save the world some 13 million terajoules of energy a year — roughly South Korea’s annual consumption, and more than data centers themselves are projected to use. The paradox thus resolves into a simple proposition: AI needs green power, and green power needs AI. Turning that flywheel into an industry is the opportunity before us.
The national direction is clear. Under the “3060” dual carbon goals, President Xi Jinping has stressed that China’s climate actions will not slow down, whatever the shifts in the international landscape. Hong Kong, committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 and to halving emissions by 2035, must now turn ambition into delivery.
Consider Sandy Ridge, the data park intended to anchor Hong Kong’s advanced computing capacity. Two numbers frame the challenge. A United Nations University study published this year ranked Hong Kong’s data centers third-worst in the world for carbon intensity — 604 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour, 43 percent above the global average — because some two-thirds of our electricity still comes from fossil fuels. Sandy Ridge alone is projected to consume around 2 billion kW-hours a year, roughly 4 percent of Hong Kong’s current use. On today’s fuel mix, we would be building one of the world’s most carbon-intensive computing hubs just as global capital makes clean power the decisive criterion for siting AI workloads.
The HKSAR government should set an explicit, rising green electricity target for Sandy Ridge: a defined minimum share of zero-carbon power at opening, escalating on a published timetable. The building blocks are falling into place — the strengthened interconnection with Daya Bay and the China Southern Power Grid allows zero-carbon energy to reach about 35 percent of the fuel mix, and land has been reserved in Tseung Kwan O Area 132 to receive further zero-carbon imports. What must catch up is the institutional plumbing. With Daya Bay’s output essentially fully committed, incremental green power requires new regional arrangements — and the expiry of both Scheme of Control Agreements in 2033 is a once-in-a-generation window to build them. The next agreements should let large users such as data parks procure certified cross-border green electricity directly, with mutual recognition between Hong Kong’s renewable energy certificates and the national green certificate system, so that every green electron carries a credential international auditors and financiers accept. Crucially, the target should be met through additional imports rather than reallocation from households and existing businesses, so that industry and livelihoods advance together. A published green power pathway would cost little in policy terms yet give Sandy Ridge a selling point no rival hub in the region can match — and give our green finance sector a flagship asset to certify and fund.
Candor is needed where market mechanisms have yet to mature. Citybus recently scaled back its hydrogen bus trial on commercial grounds — a reminder that hydrogen’s economics in road transport remain unforgiving. But one setback is not the story. The Inter-departmental Working Group on Using Hydrogen as Fuel has granted agreement-in-principle to more than 40 trials, and the most promising cluster is far from the roadside: extracting hydrogen from the Towngas network — whose gas is already roughly half hydrogen — to power electric vehicle charging, and hydrogen generators replacing diesel on construction sites, a model suited to grid-scarce early works in the Northern Metropolis. These remain trials to be judged on data rather than hope. But the direction they sketch is instructive: In a densely packed city, hydrogen’s near-term value lies in stationary and site-based applications, not in chasing vehicle fleets whose economics others can run better.
The deeper lesson is that Hong Kong’s comparative advantage lies less in operating hydrogen assets than in standards, certification, testing and finance. The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department is developing a green hydrogen certification framework, targeted for around 2027 and designed to align with the Chinese mainland and international standards. It should be paired with local testing capacity: Fuel-cell-grade hydrogen must be verified to 99.97 percent purity, yet shipping samples abroad for analysis is costly and cumbersome — a ready-made case for purity and equipment-testing centers in the Lok Ma Chau Loop and Hong Kong Science Park, serving local operators and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area clients alike. If the certification framework wins recognition from mainstream international finance and decarbonization bodies, mainland hydrogen projects could be certified in Hong Kong and tap international green capital — a genuine superconnector function.
Finally, credibility requires numbers. The mainland has published carbon-accounting guidelines for public institutions; Singapore and South Korea publish government-agency emissions annually against clear baselines. Hong Kong’s disclosures remain scattered across departmental environmental reports, with no central quantified benchmark. The government should lead by example: a unified annual platform reporting each bureau’s emissions and energy use against quantified targets, matching what the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) asks of public institutions nationwide. At the corporate level, procurement scoring and green-credit incentives can nudge large firms toward science-based targets, while small and medium-sized enterprises need simple tools and subsidies to build basic Scope 1 and 2 data.
Hong Kong should consolidate energy planning into a standing, dedicated function: one office with ownership of the city’s short-, medium- and long-term energy pathway — from retrofit finance to cross-border green power to hydrogen certification — empowered to convene bureaus at a senior level. Whether it takes the form of an office, a committee or in time a dedicated bureau matters less than the principle: A transition of this scale needs a single desk where the buck stops.
AI development, as President Xi has observed, should be a symphony of global cooperation, not a solo. So should the green transition. Hong Kong holds the instruments: deep capital markets, a trusted common law system, research excellence, the blank canvas of the Northern Metropolis, and a regulatory reset in 2033. If Sandy Ridge becomes Asia’s first data park with a published pathway to green power, Hong Kong will have shown — in results, not blueprints — that intelligence and sustainability can be built on the same foundations. It is time to plug in.
The author is a member of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and a Hong Kong deputy to the National People’s Congress.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
