The Hong Kong government announced on Friday the completion of a landmark investment agreement with a consortium of five global technology companies, Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA, Alibaba Cloud, and Samsung Research, who will collectively invest 12 billion US dollars over seven years to establish research and development facilities, data centres and AI innovation laboratories at the expanded InnoTech Park in Pak Shek Kok, Hong Kong's largest technology campus.
What Is Being Built
The 12-billion-dollar commitment encompasses five distinct investment streams. Microsoft will construct a 2.4-billion-dollar AI and cloud computing research centre, housing 1,200 researchers working on large language model development, AI safety research, and cloud infrastructure optimisation. The facility will be Microsoft's largest research investment outside the United States and will work in close partnership with Hong Kong's universities and the newly established Hong Kong AI Institute.
Google will invest 2.8 billion dollars in a data centre campus providing cloud computing infrastructure to serve customers across the Asia-Pacific region and to support Google's research into quantum computing and AI accelerator hardware. The campus, consuming 240 megawatts of power at full capacity, will be powered entirely by renewable electricity through a long-term power purchase agreement with CLP Power covering solar and offshore wind generation.
The 12-billion-dollar tech investment at InnoTech Park will create over 8,000 high-value research and engineering positions over seven years.
NVIDIA, Alibaba and Samsung Contributions
NVIDIA's 1.8-billion-dollar investment centres on the establishment of an AI Accelerator Design Centre, which will employ 600 chip architects and engineers working on next-generation GPU and specialised AI processor designs. The centre represents NVIDIA's first major design facility outside the United States, Singapore and India, and its location in Hong Kong reflects both the talent availability and the city's proximity to the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem of the Pearl River Delta and Taiwan Strait.
Alibaba Cloud will invest 2.6 billion dollars in expanding its Hong Kong data centre presence and establishing a cloud technology research centre focused on multi-cloud architecture, AI-native application development, and the technology infrastructure required to support cross-border digital commerce between mainland China and international markets. Samsung Research's 2.4-billion-dollar commitment covers semiconductor research, display technology and AI-enhanced mobile device development, with a team of 500 Korean and international researchers to be stationed in Hong Kong.
Talent and Employment Impact
The five investments collectively will create over 8,000 direct high-value employment positions, including researchers, engineers, data scientists and supporting professionals, over the seven-year investment period. The government estimates that the average salary for positions created will be HK$1.2 million annually, representing a HK$9.6-billion increase in annual wage income flowing into the Hong Kong economy at full employment across the consortium facilities.
NVIDIA's AI Accelerator Design Centre in Hong Kong will employ 600 chip architects in the company's first major design facility outside the US, Singapore and India.
Why Hong Kong
Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Alfred Ip cited five factors that the consortium members identified as decisive in choosing Hong Kong over competing locations: the city's internationally respected intellectual property protection framework; its deep talent pool from world-ranked universities; its role as the primary interface between mainland China's digital economy and global technology markets; its financial infrastructure supporting efficient capital movements for research investment and commercialisation; and the government's proactive engagement in creating a welcoming environment for technology investment through the InnoHK initiative and targeted tax concessions for qualifying R&D expenditure.
The Secretary also announced that Hong Kong would introduce an enhanced research and development tax allowance for qualifying expenditure incurred in the SAR, raising the existing 300 percent deduction for qualifying R&D to 400 percent for expenditures made by InnoTech Park anchor tenants, effective from the next fiscal year.