China Fund News reporter Zhao Xinyi and Ye Shijie
On June 24, Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC), known as the "Hong Kong version of Temasek", announced its strategic partner, BioMap, a life sciences artificial intelligence (AI) model company.
It is worth noting that this is the second partner announced by the Hong Kong investment company in two weeks. In mid-June, the Hong Kong Investment Corporation held its first public event after its establishment, and announced the signing of a strategic cooperation agreement with the Hong Kong "unicorn" Smarto Group.
"For every HK$1 invested, at least one times more market capital is attracted," said Chan Ka-kei, chief executive of HKIF. She believes that HKIC-led investment can leverage more market capital, and past experience has shown that many of these funds come from overseas institutional investors, enterprises and industries, which is conducive to the convergence of high-quality long-term capital in Hong Kong.
Regarding Hong Kong's commitment to building an international innovation and technology center and "All in AI" in the past two years, a person in the field of artificial intelligence told reporters that although Hong Kong is not very vocal in the field of AI at present, there are also some "computing anxiety", but the support of policies, capital, talents, and technology is very fast, and Hong Kong is expected to build a new highland for the AI technology industry in the future.
港版"淡马锡"全力押注AI
Focus on three major investment themes
In recent years, Hong Kong, as the world's leading innovation and technology hub, has also continued to make efforts in I&T development, riding on the new wave of R&D innovation and technological change set off by artificial intelligence (AI).
In 2022, the Hong Kong SAR Government formulated the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Development Blueprint, which sets out the direction and path for Hong Kong's I&T development, from top-level design, development path to strategic planning. In the same year, the HKSAR Government proposed the establishment of the Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIFC) to manage the Hong Kong Growth Portfolio, the Greater Bay Area Investment Fund, the Strategic Innovation and Technology Fund and the Co-Investment Fund with an initial capital of HK$62 billion.
Chen Jiaqi revealed that the intensive and large-scale paving work of the HKIC has achieved initial results, and has established an exclusive internal database of high-quality projects and a list of partners, and many projects are currently entering the stage of in-depth consultation. She expects more projects to be implemented in the future and more partners to come.
Chen Jiaqi said that the three major investment themes of the Hong Kong investment company are hard technology, life science and new energy technology. Among them, the hard technology fields include AI, data science, semiconductors, and RISC-V (fifth generation reduced instruction set) technology, which has been pursued by the high-tech industry in recent years.
Talking about the investment in Baitu Biotech, Chen Jiaqi said that he mainly focuses on its technology, team and development potential, and at the same time, the HKIC also requires the portfolio companies to continue to contribute to Hong Kong's I&T development and build an industrial ecosystem. According to the strategic cooperation agreement, BioMap will set up its first international innovation center (BioMap InnoHub) in Hong Kong, and the first project of the center is the "BioMap BioX" program, which is expected to support more than 50 cutting-edge life science early-stage R&D projects in the next five years.
In addition, BioMap Biotech will hold an international biocomputing conference in Hong Kong every year, give priority to nurturing Hong Kong biocomputing talents, and give priority to Hong Kong as a listing venue.
Baitu Biotech was co-founded by Robin Li, chairman of Baidu, and Liu Wei, former president of Baidu Ventures. Liu Wei said that Hong Kong has an excellent academic environment, especially in the fields of AI, life sciences and even biocomputing, and that Hong Kong's institutional advantages, such as the protection of data and intellectual property, will be conducive to the company's business development.
In his speech at the signing ceremony between HKIC and BioMap, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan said that the combination of AI and life sciences is opening up a new frontier in biocomputing. Hong Kong has a solid foundation in both areas and should accelerate the development of biocomputing to seize the "first-mover advantage". He also said that Hong Kong has a complete fundraising chain, from a private venture capital fund ecosystem to a listing platform with depth and breadth, and welcomes companies such as Baitu Biotech to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and use Hong Kong's world-class fundraising platform to grow and expand.
The reform of the listing system promotes the development of innovation and technology in Hong Kong
In recent years, Hong Kong has forged ahead to promote the development of innovation and technology through the reform of the listing system.
In addition to the "weighted voting rights" (i.e. "Chapter 8A"), the "18A", "18B" and "18C" chapters have also been introduced in the listing reform promoted by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with "18A" and "18C" being for pre-profit biotech companies and specialist technology companies.
In June this year, XtalPi, the "first AI pharmaceutical stock", officially landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and was also the first listed company to pass the Chapter 18C Specialized Technology Rules. On the first day of listing, XtalPi rose nearly 10%, with a total market capitalization of HK$19.8 billion. Black Sesame Intelligence, which focuses on the intelligent driving chip track, also submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in accordance with the guidelines of Chapter 18C, and passed the listing hearing on June 12.
According to the information of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, since the introduction of the "Chapter 8A" listing system reform of "weighted voting rights" in 2018, as of mid-June this year, more than 300 new economy companies have been successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with IPO financing of more than HK$944.9 billion, accounting for more than 65.1% of the total IPO financing of Hong Kong stocks during the period.
Sun Dong, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry of Hong Kong, mentioned at the listing of XtalPi: "One of the important directions for Hong Kong's future I&T development is to encourage venture capital financing, so in the next step, the HKSAR Government will further increase the efficient cooperation between government, industry, academia and research to help more enterprises become bigger and stronger in Hong Kong." ”
The reform of Hong Kong's listing system has shaped the new economic ecology of its capital market. For example, according to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, since the entry into force of the new "18A" listing rules, 127 medical and health IPO companies have come to Hong Kong, raising a total of more than HK$276.8 billion, making Hong Kong the largest biotech fundraising hub in Asia and the second largest in the world.
The market expects that the listing of XtalPi as the first Specialist Technology IPO will drive a boom in the listing of "hard tech stocks" in Hong Kong, and make the Specialist Technology Sector, which comprises five major categories of innovation and technology, emerge like the Biotech sector, and further strengthen Hong Kong's image as a global innovation and technology financing hub.
In fact, there are already a number of "hard tech" giants in Hong Kong: CATL announced the establishment of an international R&D center in Hong Kong; The first phase of the Hong Kong SAR Government Large Model Intelligent Computing Center project jointly built by China Holdings and NVIDIA was successfully delivered; HUAWEI CLOUD announced that it plans to nurture more than 100 AI innovators in Hong Kong in the next three years.
However, Hong Kong also has some shortcomings in the development of "hard technologies" such as AI. An AI giant practitioner told reporters that first of all, Hong Kong's local computing power and data are insufficient, and a large part of Hong Kong's local AI companies are currently using supercomputing centers in the mainland, and some are using overseas supercomputing centers; Secondly, it is difficult to recruit technical talents, although Hong Kong has an international background and educational resources, the high cost of living and the low conversion rate of scientific research results into actual industries at this stage are still important factors hindering talents from landing in Hong Kong. Finally, the transformation mechanism of scientific research and industry still needs to be improved.
However, he also pointed out that according to the current development trend, Hong Kong has moved very quickly in terms of policies, talent introduction, and mechanism improvement, and he believes that he will be able to make up for its shortcomings in the future.
Editor: Captain
Review: Muyu