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Budget: Accelerating Development through Reform and Innovation

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Mr Chan

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.

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Qlik Named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Augmented Data Quality Solutions

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Qlik

Qlik recently announced its recognition as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Augmented Data Quality Solutions, marking its sixth time receiving this recognition. Qlik sees this recognition as a validation of its commitment to helping businesses ensure the data quality and governance needed to drive AI confidently at scale.

“With AI models increasingly commoditized, the true differentiator is data quality,” said Mike Capone, CEO, Qlik. “Companies that invest in governance and integrity will extract the most value. This recognition from Gartner validates what we see—AI success depends on trusted data.”

AI models require consistent, complete, and trusted data to generate accurate insights, yet many organizations struggle with gaps, inconsistencies, and unstructured inputs that undermine AI’s effectiveness. Poor data results in unreliable models, biased predictions, and heightened operational risk.

“Organizations need more than standalone data quality tools—they need a complete data strategy that ensures integrity at every stage,” said Drew Clarke, GM & EVP, Data Business Unit, Qlik. “Qlik Talend Cloud enables enterprises to embed trust into their data, analytics, and AI workflows, turning fragmented data into a reliable asset.”

By enabling proactive, governed data pipelines, Qlik ensures AI systems operate with high-trust data from the start, allowing businesses to scale AI with confidence.

AI is driving demand for next-generation data quality solutions that go beyond basic cleansing. With innovations like the Qlik Trust Score for AI, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) support, and automated data remediation, businesses can move from reactive fixes to continuous, AI-powered data optimization.

Key Capabilities of Qlik:

  • Qlik Trust Score for AI: Assesses data readiness for AI applications, ensuring reliable and explainable outputs.
  • Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Deployment: Ensures consistent quality across diverse environments.
  • Unstructured Data Processing: Converts raw, unstructured content into actionable insights, ensuring seamless connectivity.
  • Automated Remediation: Machine learning refines quality rules over time, reducing manual effort.
  • Data Products: Ensuring that curated data assets are easily accessible to data consumers to accelerate their use-cases, including AI projects.

“Trusted data is critical to our operations, from regulatory reporting to daily decision-making,” said Tomohisa Nakajima, Senior Manager, ICT Strategy Department, at NEC Personal Computer Corporation. “As we explore AI, ensuring data quality and governance allows us to do so responsibly and with confidence. Qlik Talend Cloud will help us automate data quality, reduce inconsistencies, and build a foundation of trust that supports both our current needs and future AI initiatives.”

“We’re seeing an increasing demand from businesses that recognize AI’s potential but struggle with data reliability,” added Clarke. “Qlik’s ability to deliver converged data management—from ingestion to AI-powered insights—sets us apart and ensures organizations can scale AI initiatives with confidence.”

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With NVIDIA Cosmos Curator, Milestone announces a platform to enable access to data and train AI Models

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Milestone NVIDIA

Leveraging the NVIDIA platform, Milestone Systems’ Project Hafnia is aiming to be a leading service for data generators, to share and utilize their data, and for developers, to access traceable and regulatory-compliant annotated video data.

Milestone’s goal is to put the latest advances in Vision Language Models (VLM) and supporting data curation capabilities in the hands of as many developers as possible.  One of the first service offerings is a VLM, fine-tuned using NVIDIA fine-tuning microservices on a large volume of compliant transportation data, curated using NVIDIA Cosmos Curator.

The VLM’s accuracy and performance optimizations are tuned for running on NVIDIA GPUs and in NVIDIA’s video search and summarization (VSS) AI blueprint. 

“By leveraging the NVIDIA platform, Milestone Systems is helping accelerate this next wave of powerful visual services,” says Deepu Talla NVIDIA Vice President and General Manager — Embedded and Edge Computing. “The next phase in development and adoption of visually perceptive Agentic AI services will be unlocked by recipes like NVIDIA VSS blueprint combined with widely available and accessible fine-tuned VLM models,” he says.

Access to data
Milestone Systems is aggregating compliant data through its global network of partners and customers in video data management. These organizations seek to leverage their own data to develop smarter analytics and will be able to benefit from the platform, which can be utilized to train AI models on sufficient, compliant data.

Artificial intelligence is our generation’s biggest game-changer. A major challenge for the ongoing development is having access to enough high-quality data for training AI models. The Project Hafnia platform will collect and curate data with the aspiration to be the world’s smartest, fastest and responsible platform for video data and training of AI models,” says Thomas Jensen, CEO of Milestone Systems.

Additionally, Project Hafnia will remove major friction points and provide smooth and seamless access to data. Driven by NVIDIA Cosmos Curator data curation, the service will speed up developing AI and analytics – up to 30 times faster than today’s standards.

Accuracy and speed
Milestone Systems will offer two services:

  •  A cutting-edge service for AI model training with high-quality video data through Training as a Service, where software developers can access quality data to train AI-models
  • A new Visual Language Model as a Service for smart city transportation and Intelligent Traffic Service use-cases that will be industry leading in performance.  


With new high-quality data and improved annotation, future analytic software for applications such as traffic management, manufacturing, airports, law enforcement, and business could achieve accuracy high enough to enable large-scale automation of operations and surveillance like never before.

Traffic Management VLM
By leveraging the NVIDIA platform, Milestone Systems has taken the first step in developing a market leading traffic and transportation Visual Language Model (VLM). The model supports a range of use cases, including general traffic assessments, driving condition evaluations, alert validation, and incident reporting.  

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UiPath to Unveil Latest Agentic Automation Solutions at Agentic AI Summit

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AI Summit

UiPath recently announced its annual UiPath Agentic AI Summit will take place online on March 25, offering attendees deeper insight into the latest UiPath agentic automation innovations and strategies for implementing agentic AI and automation to deliver consistent, reliable, and transformative business outcomes.

Agentic automation integrates AI agents, robots, and people to streamline operations, automate complex end-to-end business processes with multiple workflows and contextual decision-making, improve scalability, and unlock new levels of productivity. It enables AI software agents powered by machine learning, advanced AI, natural language processing, and computer vision to take autonomous action and deliver consistent, reliable, and transformative outcomes.

“Agentic automation is transforming businesses by integrating advanced process automation, business data and real-time intelligence to support scalable decision-making, and we’re seeing strong interest from customers eager to pilot this technology,” said Graham Sheldon, Chief Product Officer at UiPath. “UiPath agentic automation delivers value by driving efficiency, consistency, and scalability while empowering teams, enhancing user experiences, and ensuring strong governance. Simply put, the UiPath Platform is one of the best places to build, test, and deploy enterprise-grade agents.”

At the Summit, viewers will learn how to unlock and accelerate agentic automation initiatives with AI agents that are equipped with enterprise-grade tools and capabilities, orchestrated in complex, end-to-end workflows with robots and human-in-the-loop.

The Summit features experts from UiPath and customers such as WEX, State Street, and Adobe discussing a range of in-demand topics that can help automation professionals, business leaders, and knowledge workers understand the benefits of agentic automation. WEX, a provider of payment processing and information management services, will discuss how it is using the UiPath Platform to build, test, and deploy enterprise-grade agents to transform business processes, in part to enhance sales team preparation and document processing.

“Agentic automation enables us to make informed decisions and quickly adapt to business changes for rapid scaling. Its integration in call centers consolidates automations, streamlines processes, and empowers agents to use natural language,” said Emily Krohne, Enterprise Automation Principal at WEX. “This solution recognizes requests, triggers appropriate automations, and lightens the load on our workforce.”

Ashraf El Zarka, Vice President and Managing Director, Middle East and Africa at UiPath, said: “Businesses in the Middle East are moving beyond basic automation and actively investing in AI-driven solutions that solve real challenges. With AI expected to contribute $320 billion to the region’s economy by 2030, we see strong demand for technologies that simplify operations and deliver real value. Agentic Automation makes this possible by combining AI agents, robots, and people to improve decision-making and efficiency at scale. The Agentic AI Summit is a chance for businesses to see how they can use AI agents to work smarter, reduce complexity, and drive meaningful results.”

The summit will describe building trustworthy, governed enterprise agents within the UiPath Platform with specific sessions on Agentic Orchestration, Agentic Testing, and Agent Builder. The Agentic AI Summit will close with the session, “From inception to execution: The path to an orchestrated enterprise,” that will discuss the future of the orchestrated enterprise and will explore the latest AI research and agentic innovations that will profoundly transform organizations, empower the people who work in them, and change the nature of work itself.

Use case sessions will include:

  • Industry deep-dive: putting agentic automation to work in banking, financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing
  • Department deep-dive: how agentic automation is transforming finance, legal, and human resources
  • Application testing deep-dive: transforming SAP and SAP S/4HANA migration testing with AI
  • Process intelligence: leverage AI-powered insights for data-driven decisions on impactful transformation opportunities

UiPath Agentic Automation offerings

UiPath offers customers a single platform to understand and construct agentic solutions with a thorough understanding of key foundational components and the interplay between them. Its agentic offerings include:

  • Agentic Orchestration: now in public preview, UiPath Agentic Orchestration serves as the nerve center to meticulously coordinate processes involving UiPath-built or third-party agents, robots, people and harmonizes all elements within an automation ecosystem. It functions as the conductor in the grand symphony of business processes, orchestrating the roles of robots, agents, and people in end-to-end implementations. The average large company operates over 175 enterprise applications, each with its own data, processes, and decision-making frameworks. Without a structured, orchestrated approach, AI agents become just another layer of complexity that leads to more inefficiency, siloed decisions, and operational risk. Agentic Orchestration makes it possible for enterprises to take control of their agentic processes by assigning tasks, managing interactions across systems, and maintaining governance over AI-powered decisions.
  • Agent Builder: The company also recently announced UiPath Agent Builder, which offers a guided experience for building, testing, and launching ecosystem-agnostic, data-grounded AI agents. These agents handle complex workflows, provide autonomous decision-making, and integrate various enterprise tools and applications at scale. Agent Builder features include from-scratch agent creation, pre-built templates, testing tools, API deployment, and seamless workflow integration.

At the summit, UiPath will also announce the launch of UiPath Test Cloud, a revolutionary new approach to software testing that uses advanced AI to amplify tester productivity across the entire testing lifecycle to help customers achieve greater efficiency and cost savings. Through Test Cloud, agentic testing for software testing teams becomes a reality, equipping professionals with agents such as UiPath Autopilot and testing agents built with Agent Builder to act as collaborative partners throughout the entire testing lifecycle. By augmenting testers with AI, businesses can test more software, reduce costs, and improve accuracy to accelerate time-to-value and deliver high-quality software to customers.

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