Tech News

Budget: Accelerating Development through Reform and Innovation

Published

9 months ago

February 26, 2025

The Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, unveiled today his 2025-26 Budget. He noted that while geopolitical situation might bring risks, technology reform and artificial intelligence (AI) development are remoulding the global landscape, leading to the emergence of new industries, new forms of business, new products and new services. He stressed that Hong Kong must seize the opportunity to make the most out of this critical window to speed up development, establishing the new before abolishing the old. He also emphasised that transformation and innovation will lead the way into the future, and the Government is poised to fast-track the high-quality development of Hong Kong’s economy.

The Budget presents a series of measures aimed at accelerating the cultivation of new quality productive forces. On innovation and technology (I&T), the Government will promote Hong Kong into an international exchange and co-operation hub for the AI industry. Through frontier research and real-world application, the Government will endeavour to develop AI as a core industry and empower traditional industries in their upgrading and transformation. To spearhead and support Hong Kong’s innovative research and development as well as industrial application of AI, the Government will establish the Hong Kong AI Research and Development Institute and launch the Pilot Manufacturing and Production Line Upgrade Support Scheme (Manufacturing+). On finance, the Government will continue to take forward reforms to the listing regime, host the Hong Kong Global Financial and Industry Summit, and formulate a plan this year on promoting gold market development.

To seize the opportunities brought about by the rapid advancement of innovation and technology, the Budget highlights the need to accelerate the development of the Northern Metropolis, which is an investment in Hong Kong’s future. The Government will continue to accord priority to providing resources for this initiative, which primarily includes providing large tracts of I&T land at the Hong Kong Park of the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Co-operation Zone, together with San Tin Technopole; adopting an innovative mindset in piloting “large-scale land disposal”; developing a data facility cluster at Sandy Ridge; as well as identifying suitable sites in the Northern Metropolis for the construction of conference and exhibition facilities.

On the promotion of tourism, funding will be allocated to pursue the concept of “tourism is everywhere” and implement the Development Blueprint for Hong Kong’s Tourism Industry 2.0. A study will be conducted on the development of the waterfront and former sites to the south of the Hung Hom Station into a new harbourfront landmark, including a yacht club.

Regarding land supply, Mr Chan announced that the Government will not roll out any commercial site for sale in the coming year in view of the high vacancy rates of offices in recent years to allow the market to absorb the existing supply. The Government will also consider rezoning some of the commercial sites into residential use and allowing greater flexibility of land use. To tie in with the relevant work, the deadline for completing in-situ land exchange for commercial sites in the town centre of the Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen New Development Area will be extended.

Mr Chan proposed a reinforced version of the fiscal consolidation programme to focus on strictly controlling government expenditure, supplemented by increasing revenue, to restore fiscal balance in the Operating Account, in a planned and progressive manner, within the current term of the Government. For 2025-26, the executive authorities, the legislature, the judiciary and members of the District Councils, including members of the civil service, take a pay freeze. The Government will step up the Productivity Enhancement Programme; compared with 2023-24, the recurrent expenditure in 2027-28 will record a cumulative reduction by 7 per cent and deliver a saving of $27.3 billion. By April 2027, about 10 000 posts of the civil service establishment are expected to be deleted within this term of Government. The Government will also deliver more efficient public services to citizens through leveraging technology, streamlining processes and driving the digital transformation of public services. In the Budget, it is proposed to adjust two transport subsidy schemes, namely putting forward the “$2 flat rate cum 80 per cent discount” in the Government Public Transport Fare Concession Scheme for the Elderly and Eligible Persons with Disabilities ($2 Scheme), and raising the threshold for receiving the subsidy under the Public Transport Fare Subsidy Scheme from $400 to $500, with the prevailing subsidy cap at $400 per month remaining unchanged. He will uphold the “user pays” and the “affordable users pay” principles as far as practicable while increasing revenue, including increasing the air passenger departure tax, and reviewing the tolls of government tunnels and trunk roads. The Government will suitably expand the size of bond issuance on the premise of maintaining healthy public finances and use the funds raised on infrastructure works in a proper and flexible manner to invest in Hong Kong’s future and create value for society.

Mr Chan concluded that he has full confidence in and high expectations for the future of Hong Kong, because Hong Kong people are intelligent, creative and tireless in contributing to the economic development. More importantly, he is confident due to the staunch and unwavering support received from the country and Hong Kong people’s profound insight into the major development trends of the future, as well as the city’s enviable and advantageous position.

Tech News

VAST Data Partners with Google Cloud to Enable Enterprise AI at Scale Across Hybrid Cloud Environments

Published

5 days ago

November 12, 2025

Integrator Web-Editor

VAST Data, the AI Operating System company, today announced an expanded partnership with Google Cloud, the first fully managed service for the VAST AI Operating System (AI OS), enabling customers to deploy the AI OS and extend a unified global namespace across hybrid environments. Powered by the VAST DataSpace, enterprises can seamlessly connect clusters running in Google Cloud and on-premises locations, eliminating complex migrations and making data instantly available wherever AI runs.

Enterprises want to run AI where it performs best, but data rarely lives in one place and migrating can take months and costs millions. Fragmented storage and siloed data pipelines make it hard to feed the AI accelerators with consistent, high-throughput access and every environment change multiplies governance and compliance burdens.

VAST and Google Cloud address this challenge by making data placement a choice rather than a constraint. In this recorded demonstration, VAST showcased the power of the VAST DataSpace to connect clusters across more than 10,000 kilometers, linking one in the United States with another in Japan. This configuration delivered seamless, near real-time access to the same data in both locations while running inference workloads with vLLM, enabling intelligent workload placement so organizations can run AI models on TPUs in the US and GPUs in Japan without duplicating data or managing separate environments.

“Together with Google Cloud, VAST is building a unified data and computing environment that extends to wherever a customer wants to compute and unleashes the potential of AI by unlocking access to all data everywhere,” said Jeff Denworth, Co-Founder at VAST Data. “Delivered as a managed AI Operating System on Google Cloud, customers can go from zero to production in minutes – we’re turning hybrid complexity into a single, intelligent fabric that provides fast access to data, regardless of where it resides to accelerate time to value for agentic AI.”

“Bringing VAST AI Operating System to Google Cloud Marketplace will help customers quickly deploy, manage, and grow the data solution on Google Cloud’s trusted, global infrastructure,” said Nirav Mehta, Vice President, Compute Platform at Google Cloud. “VAST can now securely scale and support customers on their digital transformation journeys.”

Powering Google Cloud TPUs with seamless data access and near-local performance

Recent performance results also show how the VAST AI Operating System connects seamlessly to Google Cloud Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) virtual machines, integrating directly with Google Cloud’s platform for large-scale AI. In testing with Meta’s Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct model, the VAST AI Operating System delivered model load speeds comparable to some of the best options available in the cloud, while maintaining predictable performance during cold starts.

These results confirm that the VAST AI OS is not just a data platform but a performance engine designed to keep accelerators fully utilized and AI pipelines continuously in motion.

“The VAST AI OS is redefining what it means to move fast in AI, delivering model load speeds comparable to cloud-native alternatives while providing the full power of an advanced, enterprise-grade AI platform,” said Subramanian Kartik, Chief Scientist at VAST Data. “This is the kind of acceleration that turns idle accelerators into active intelligence, driving higher efficiency and faster time to insight for every AI workload.”

With VAST on Google Cloud, customers can benefit from:

Deploy AI in Minutes, Not Months: Organizations can run production AI workloads on Google Cloud today against existing on-premises datasets without migration planning, transfer delays, or extended compliance cycles. Using VAST DataSpace and intelligent streaming, they can present a consistent global namespace of data across on-prem and Google Cloud instantly.
Reduce Data-Movement Costs: Stream only the subsets that models require to avoid full replication and reduce egress – cutting footprint and redirecting budget from data movement to AI innovation with infrastructure that is future-ready for the demanding AI pipelines in genomics, structural biology, and financial services.
Maximize Google Cloud Innovation with Flexible Data Placement: Choose what to migrate, replicate, or cache to Google Cloud while keeping one namespace and consistent governance by applying unified access controls, audit, and retention policies everywhere to simplify compliance and reduce operational risk. Leverage VAST DataStore and VAST DataBase to unify prep, training, inference, and analytics without rewiring pipelines.
TPU-Ready Data Path: Feed TPU VMs over validated NFS paths with optimized model loading and metadata-aware I/O, delivering fast, consistent warm-start performance and predictable behavior during cold-starts.
Build on a Unified Platform: The VAST AI Operating System delivers a DataStore, DataBase, InsightEngine, AgentEngine and DataSpace that scales across on-premises and Google Cloud environments and adapts to changing business needs without architectural rewrites, enabling data scientists to use a variety of access protocols with a single solution.

Tech News

AUKEY PARTNERS WITH THE BROOKLYN NETS FOR AN ELECTRIFYING NBA SEASON

Published

5 days ago

November 12, 2025

Integrator Web-Editor

Barclays Center arena interior during Cavaliers vs Nets NBA game with Aukey

AUKEY, a leading innovator in cutting-edge tech accessories, is proud to announce a multiyear partnership with the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, beginning this 2025-26 NBA season. This collaboration is AUKEY’s first sports partnership, marking an exciting milestone for their expansion and reflecting their ongoing commitment to delivering high-quality, innovative technology experiences to a global audience.

Through this partnership, AUKEY will team up with the Brooklyn Nets to engage fans both on and off the court. Together, they’ve launched a non-commercial, limited-edition wireless power bank, the MagFusion M 5000 Brooklyn Nets Co-Branded Edition, combining the team’s bold identity with cutting-edge wireless charging technology.

Fans can participate in AUKEY’s social media giveaway activities for a chance to win one on Instagram and Facebook, keeping their energy flowing anytime, anywhere while enjoying exciting game moments.

MagFusion M 5000 Brooklyn Nets Co-Branded Edition

“We’re thrilled to partner with the Brooklyn Nets, a team that embodies creativity, resilience, and the spirit of New York,” said Jackey Li, CEO at AUKEY US. “At AUKEY, we power every moment with strength, endurance, and an unbreakable drive to keep innovating. The Nets share that same unstoppable spirit and we look forward to sharing that spirit of innovation and energy with basketball fans worldwide.”

AUKEY’s work with the Nets will extend in-arena at Barclays Center for the team’s home games, as well as on the team’s social media channels. This partnership represents a fusion of tech, sport, and culture and together, AUKEY and the Brooklyn Nets aim to unlock more power in every moment, from the court to the community, keeping fans charged for what’s next.

Tech News

GCC COMPANIES ACHIEVE 30-SECOND PAYROLL PROCESSING WITH 100 PER CENT ACCURACY USING ADVANCED HRMS, REVEALS GREYTHR

Published

6 days ago

November 11, 2025

Integrator Web-Editor

Girish Rowjee, Co-founder and CEO of greytHR

Companies across the GCC region have experienced higher workforce management efficiency using advanced AI-powered HRMS, reporting 100 per cent accuracy and stronger compliance with GCC labour regulations, reveals a recent survey conducted by greytHR, the leading full-suite Human Resource Management System (HRMS) platform. Notably, organisations with around 1000 employees could complete their payroll processing in just about 30 seconds using the innovative platform.

The findings point to an exponential shift within the GCC HR landscape, where organisations are embracing intelligent automated HR operations amid evolving labour regulations, hybrid work models, and the rise of multi-country workforces. The company’s data shows that 75 per cent of GCC companies are first-time HR automation adopters, while 24 per cent have migrated from legacy systems, highlighting the ongoing regional transition towards fully digitised, compliance-ready HR frameworks.

greytHR is powering this digital shift through its robust cloud-based infrastructure and AI-powered tools, which simplify the entire hire-to-retire employee lifecycle, from recruitment and onboarding to core HR, leave, attendance, payroll, performance, exit and engagement.

Girish Rowjee, Co-founder and CEO of greytHR, said, “At greytHR, we believe that ‘people’ are the primary pillar of any business. A company’s growth relies on the dedication and hard work of its employees. As a result of this belief, we built our HRMS to make employee lifecycle management simpler, more transparent, and more connected within the HR ecosystem. Our goal is to help organisations reinvent how they manage and support their workforce through intelligent, people-focused automation in today’s digital world.”

Through it’s a highly intelligent and unified system, greytHR has been continuously addressing the region’s distinctive challenges and maximising impact through efficient workforce management.

Sayeed Anjum, Co-Founder & CTO, greytHR, said: “As companies expand across borders and hybrid work models become the norm, HR leaders face issues such as manual payroll errors, fragmented systems and limited automation, which can directly impact compliance, employee satisfaction, and productivity. Our platform is tailored to address these pain points and the region’s unique needs by serving as an intelligent, unified system that simplifies all stages of workforce management. This further aligns with our broader vision of creating measurable impact for companies and transforming the regional HR ecosystem through digitisation.”

He further stated: “Currently, IT & ITeS, Business, and Financial Service sectors lead in HRMS adoption, at 19 per cent, 15 per cent and 10.5 per cent respectively, highlighting the vital role of technology-driven and service-oriented businesses in catalysing the ongoing digital HR revolution.”

greytHR offers built-in compliance features tailored to GCC nations, including automated GPSSA deductions, multi-country payroll capabilities, and real-time analytics. Moreover, its intuitive interface and modular architecture make it accessible to businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises.

The company showcased these advanced offerings at the recent HR Summit & Expo 2025, held in Dubai, highlighting its commitment to supporting the region’s evolving workforce needs. As GCC continues to position itself as a global business hub, greytHR remains steadfast in its efforts to positively shape the future of the regional HR industry.