Deep learning has become a popular emerging technology in recent years. Many university students are eager to equip themselves with such knowledge and skills in order to capture the opportunities brought about by the development of innovation and technology in various industries.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and a Chinese multinational technology company jointly organised an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bootcamp in late April to share the latest developments of leading technologies such as digitalisation, machine learning and deep learning.
Participants exchanged views on how to integrate digital technologies into different disciplines and facilitate interdisciplinary learning at local universities in order to create a “digital + talent” ecosystem.
In the bootcamp, participants got hands-on experience through the use of Huawei Ascend series products for different deep learning model training and reasoning experiments, including image classification, object detection, and mask-wearing detection.
Moreover, the tech giant’s Cloud’s ModelArts, a one-stop model automatic learning platform, can also be used for model training where the trained deep learning model will be converted to Atlas development kit to complete the inference process.
The Interim Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme) of PolyU stated that the cooperation between PolyU and the tech company in research development has been ongoing since 2007.
“In the past few years, we have advanced a variety of innovative technologies in different fields, including optical communications, microwave communications, big data, crowdsourcing platforms, wireless network surveying as well as automatic navigation, that pioneered the development of information and communication technology (ICT),” he said.
It was also noted that by leveraging the innovative research applications of PolyU and the industry-leading competitiveness of the tech giant, the bootcamp aimed to develop those AI systems that support impactful research with the ultimate goal of benefitting society with technologically advanced applications.
Meanwhile, the Head of Applied Physics of PolyU stated, “Physics and AI are mutually related. While Physics helps formulate better AI models, AI can solve complicated Physics problems more efficiently, resulting in more new discoveries.”
The General Manager of the tech company’s Hong Kong Representative Office noted that talent is one of the cores that supports the development of the digital industry, and universities are the base for talent cultivation.
He said the tech company is honoured to cooperate with PolyU in deepening the integration among industry, academia and research sectors to nurture talent to meet industry needs.
The aim is to foster the development of smart industries and support digitalisation in different industries by building a local ‘digital + talent’ ecosystem.
Various departments of PolyU, including the Department of Building and Real Estate, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and the Department of Health Technology and Informatics, have worked together with the tech giant on a number of research projects on digitalisation with different scopes such as activity tracking on construction sites, object lifting function of robotic arms, and medical imaging analysis.
PolyU will continue collaborative research in AI-related disciplines with Huawei, which has been providing invaluable advice and support to the University.
PolyU believes the joint efforts in offering professional training and establishing innovation laboratories will help nurture digitalisation and AI talent and develop more impactful technologies and applications for the development of the local technology ecosystem.
