Hong Kong’s tech start-ups should focus on the practical applications of their products and “talk less” about artificial intelligence (AI) when pitching to the US market, the CEO of a government-backed innovation hub has said in a nod to geopolitical challenges.
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Albert Wong Hak-keung, CEO of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, said on Sunday the city’s entrepreneurs could still learn a lot from Silicon Valley on the west coast of America, even amid Sino-US tensions.
“The west coast is a haven for entrepreneurship as it has a comprehensive ecosystem of funding and universities. They have been doing it for the past six to seven decades,” Wong told a radio show.
But he said Hong Kong businesses should focus on pitching how their products could be used and “talk less” about AI abilities.
Advances in AI have become a source of tension between the United States and China, with Washington restricting access by Chinese firms to some of the most advanced chips used to power the technology.
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The rivalry has come into particularly sharp focus following the recent unveiling of a powerful AI model by Chinese start-up DeepSeek, a low-cost competitor to market leaders such as the US-based OpenAI and its well-known ChatGPT tool.