Supporters of Marcus Endicott’s Patreon can access weekly or monthly video consultations on this topic.
In September 2013, Digital Domain Holdings Limited (數字王國集團有限公司), a visual-effects company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, achieved what was at the time an extraordinary technical feat: a virtual rendering of the beloved Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng (鄧麗君), who had died in 1995, appeared alongside Jay Chou (周杰倫) at the Opus Jay 2013 World Tour at Taipei Arena in Taiwan, performing three songs before audiences totalling over 100,000. This Taiwan-based event was produced by the VFX studio that Digital Domain's Hong Kong-listed holding company controlled, and it announced to the region that photorealistic virtual performance technology had arrived. A year later, in October 2014, Digital Domain Media formalised its commitment to the technology by forming a ten-year joint venture with TNT Production Limited, representing the Teresa Teng estate, on terms giving Digital Domain Media a sixty per cent interest and TNT forty per cent, for the purpose of producing and exploiting 3D holograms of Teng for concerts, albums, films, and advertisements worldwide. That venture delivered its most ambitious production outside Hong Kong in May 2015, when "If a Wish Could Be Made: Teresa Teng 20th Anniversary Memorial Concert in 3D" opened at Taipei Arena in Taiwan — billed as Asia's first virtual concert. Approximately 7,000 fans watched a two-hour-plus show featuring a life-size virtual Teng in her signature slim-fitting Chinese dresses, with singer Fei Yuqing (費玉清) performing live duets with the hologram. The production used Digital Domain's Academy Award-winning MOVA motion-capture technology, supervised by VFX artist Steve Preeg, and cost US$15 million, funded by the Teresa Teng Foundation.
While Digital Domain was advancing holographic performance in Taiwan, another institution was quietly laying deeper foundations in Hong Kong itself. Hanson Robotics, originally founded in Dallas, Texas in 2007 by Dr David Hanson — a former Disney Imagineering sculptor — had relocated its headquarters to Hong Kong Science Park in 2013. At its Pak Shek Kok laboratory, Hanson developed Sophia, a humanoid robot modelled after Queen Nefertiti, Audrey Hepburn, and Amanda Hanson, which was activated on 14 February 2016. Sophia was capable of more than sixty facial expressions, employed a CereProc text-to-speech engine, and combined scripting software, a chat system, and the open-source OpenCog reasoning framework overseen by chief scientist Ben Goertzel. Sophia's creation at Hong Kong Science Park gave the territory a direct claim to one of the most recognised artificial faces in the world, and that claim would be exercised repeatedly on the global stage in the years that followed.
The year 2017 became the inflection point. In July, at the RISE Conference at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Sophia and a companion robot named Han staged a debate on the future of humans versus AI, moderated by Goertzel, making AI the dominant theme of RISE 2017 and bringing Hanson Robotics' work in Hong Kong to international audiences gathered in the city. That same year, Asiabots Limited was founded at Cyberport by four co-founders — Chris Shum as CEO, alongside Thomas Wong, Isaac Wong, and Ryan Lam — and took up residence at Unit 521, Level 5, Cyberport 3. The company began building what it described as the first virtual humans developed by a Hong Kong company. The earliest designs were primitive, featuring only two large eyes without complete facial features, but Asiabots simultaneously developed its own natural language processing engine with Cantonese support, along with text-to-speech and automated speech-recognition systems. Separately, in May 2017, Digital Domain premiered "Today We Meet Again: The Virtual Teresa Teng Music Magical Show" in Taiwan at Taipei's Syntrend Creative Park, producing fifteen songs with Teng's virtual image in an event that took place outside Hong Kong but extended the company's virtual performance franchise in Asia. On 15 December 2017, the Hong Kong government released the Hong Kong Smart City Blueprint, setting out seventy-six initiatives across six smart areas and naming artificial intelligence and big data analytics as core pillars, while also establishing the HK$2 billion Innovation and Technology Venture Fund to co-invest with private venture-capital funds in local start-ups.
In February 2018, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po (陳茂波) delivered a budget that transformed Hong Kong's innovation landscape with an additional HK$50 billion commitment to innovation and technology, raising total government investment to roughly HK$60 billion. The allocation included HK$20 billion for the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park at Lok Ma Chau Loop, HK$10 billion for the Innovation and Technology Fund, HK$10 billion for two research clusters focused on healthcare technologies and AI-and-robotics, HK$10 billion for Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, HK$200 million for enhanced Cyberport start-up support, and a 300 per cent tax deduction for the first HK$2 million of qualifying R&D expenditure. In April 2018, Asiabots launched Dr. Care (隨行醫生), a medical service on Facebook Messenger featuring its first-generation NLP engine with Cantonese support, a symptom checker covering more than 2,000 symptoms and 300 diseases, and, crucially, an animated avatar character named Carey — described as a caring robot whose design took more than six months of work by illustrators and engineers. Carey represented the earliest publicly deployed visual avatar produced by a Hong Kong company in a client-facing digital health context. Also in April, on 2 May 2018, AIA Hong Kong deployed a physical customer service robot named Andy at the AIA Wealth Select Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui, featuring face-recognition technology and greeting customers in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English — an industry-first deployment of a humanoid service robot within Hong Kong's insurance retail environment.
On 21 May 2018, the HKAI Lab, a not-for-profit initiative jointly funded by the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund and SenseTime and partnered with Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, was launched at Hong Kong Science Park in the presence of Chief Executive Carrie Lam, Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai, and SenseTime founder Professor Xiao'ou Tang (湯曉鷗). Its accelerator programme, opening that September, offered each selected AI start-up US$100,000 in funding alongside access to SenseTime's deep-learning platform and Alibaba Cloud resources. That same month of May 2018, Digital Domain staged a charity show for Teresa Teng's sixty-fifth anniversary in Taipei, continuing its virtual performance programme in Taiwan. In July 2018, Sophia returned to the RISE Conference at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, this time singing on stage and demonstrating facial-expression mimicry — once again positioning Hong Kong as a stage for the world's most famous humanoid robot. In August 2018, Digital Domain brought its holographic technology to mainland China for the first time with "Teresa Teng – The Legend," a holographic concert in Hangzhou produced in collaboration with Prism Entertainment and the Teresa Teng Foundation and described as China's first holographic and panoramic virtual concert — an event held in China involving Digital Domain's Hong Kong-listed parent. November 2018 marked the emergence of Hong Kong's first virtual influencer to reach international high-fashion circles: Chan Ka-yu, known as Ruby Gloom, who had been building her digital alter ego Ruby9100M since 2016, was contacted directly by Fendi via Instagram, leading to a collaboration on the "F IS FOR FENDI" social-media platforms — among the earliest high-fashion partnerships anywhere in the world with a Hong Kong-based virtual creator.
In May 2019, Digital Domain's Digital Human Group achieved a historic first outside Hong Kong: Doug Roble, the company's Senior Director of Software R&D, sent his real-time digital avatar "DigiDoug" to deliver what was billed as the first digital human TED Talk at TED2019. The system used a single camera and minimal markers, running on Unreal Engine with NVIDIA GPUs, Xsens motion capture, Manus VR gloves, and DI4D facial capture — a proof of concept for the autonomous digital humans Digital Domain would subsequently commercialise. Also in 2019, Ruby9100M worked with a well-known Hong Kong shopping mall to create three CGI avatars as commercial representatives, in one of the earliest known deployments of virtual influencer avatars by a Hong Kong commercial property. In August 2019, Pantheon Lab Limited was founded at Hong Kong Science Park by co-founders Ivan Lau as CEO, Christina Tse, and Mark Chan, and admitted to the HKSTP Incu-Tech Programme. Specialising in deep learning and in particular generative adversarial networks, Pantheon Lab developed proprietary technologies for face synthesis, face shifting, and lip syncing to create hyper-realistic digital human avatars. In November 2019, Innocorn Technology Limited (創科冠) was founded at Hong Kong Science Park by Daniel Lee, drawing on over twenty years of IT and finance experience from institutions including HSBC, Barclays, and Bank of China; the company was admitted as an HKSTP member company and received institutional backing from HKSTP, initially focusing on computer vision, facial recognition, and smart building applications before developing the digital human product that would define its later identity.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its enforced pivot toward remote interaction and automation created conditions that favoured digital human development across 2020. In January of that year, Gusto Collective was founded in Hong Kong by Aaron Lau (劉偉權), a veteran of over three decades in the advertising industry who had led DDB Asia and later Cheil Worldwide, Samsung Group's marketing subsidiary. Lau funded Gusto Collective with a multi-million-dollar personal investment alongside a group of investors. In February 2020, the company launched Gusto Media Lab, a digital-technology studio led by Ray Wong, former Hong Kong CEO of PHD. By mid-June 2020, Gusto had acquired a majority stake in Reuter Communications, a luxury consultancy founded in Shanghai in 2010 by Chloé Reuter and Nick Cakebread with 120 employees across Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and London, rebranding it Gusto Luxe. Later in 2020, Gusto acquired 26Hz, a Hong Kong augmented-reality specialist, creating Gusto XR Lab, whose early projects in Hong Kong included the 5G AR Lens for CSL, an artwork installation for the Hong Kong Museum of Art's thirtieth anniversary, and augmented-reality activations featuring the Hong Kong boy band Mirror. In September 2020, beingAI was founded in Hong Kong by CEO Jeanne Lim, President Lee Chapman, and CTO and Chief Science Officer Dr Amit Kumar Pandey. Lim had studied psychology at UC Berkeley, earned an MBA from HKUST, and had earlier co-created Sophia the Robot at Hanson Robotics, where she served first as Chief Marketing Officer and then as CEO; Pandey had served as Head Principal Scientist at SoftBank Robotics Europe. The company described itself as the world's first transmedia AI company, aiming to merge character design, AI, psychology, and transmedia storytelling.
In November 2020, Digital Domain unveiled "Douglas" — described as the most realistic real-time autonomous digital human in the world at the time of its announcement. Built from Doug Roble's likeness using more than one hundred hours of performance capture, Douglas employed neural rendering trained on photographs of Roble in various lighting conditions and could swap faces with only thirty minutes of audio or ten minutes of video. The same announcement introduced Masquerade 2.0, a next-generation facial-capture system rebuilt from scratch. On 10 December 2020, the Hong Kong government released Smart City Blueprint 2.0, expanding to over 130 initiatives across the territory's digital infrastructure. Pantheon Lab, meanwhile, migrated its machine-learning model training to Google Cloud in 2020, using A100 GPUs for graphics-intensive workloads, and accumulated approximately twenty-five terabytes of data as it refined its GAN-based digital human technology.
The year 2021 marked the transition from experimentation to commercialisation and spectacle across Hong Kong's digital human sector. In January, Hanson Robotics announced plans to mass-produce four robot models — including Sophia — beginning in the first half of the year, with a goal of selling thousands of units, citing pandemic-driven demand for automation. The announcement came from the company's laboratory at Hong Kong Science Park. In March 2021, Sophia became an NFT artist: her AI-generated self-portrait "Sophia Instantiation," a twelve-second video created in collaboration with Italian artist Andrea Bonaceto, sold for US$688,888 on the Nifty Gateway platform in an auction livestreamed from a Hong Kong studio, and the wider series raised US$1.7 million in total. In August 2021, beingAI unveiled its first AI being, Zbee, described as the world's first AI being — a virtual character with an engaging personality capable of autonomous real-time interaction across devices and media platforms, designed to offer friendship, entertainment, and mentorship. A strategic partnership with MyXR Inc. was announced in September 2021. In October 2021, Gusto Collective's virtual metahuman artist MonoC made her first public appearance in a spread in Elle Magazine. Described as Hong Kong's first metahuman artist, MonoC was a female Eurasian character in her early thirties, an art gallery co-owner calling Hong Kong and Shanghai home, her facial structures generated from more than 10,000 3D renderings of different expressions and said to represent both East and West converging through Hong Kong. Aaron Lau designed MonoC as proprietary IP and an artistic manifestation of Gusto Collective's creative ethos, establishing her Instagram presence at @mo.noc during the year. Also in October 2021, Pantheon Lab was selected for the JUMPSTARTER 2022 Top 100, the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund start-up competition, and won first runner-up in the Open Group and the Best Performance Award at the SciTech Challenge 2021 at HKSTP. The company also launched AIVO.ai, an AI-powered text-to-video creator that could analyse articles and automatically splice footage from Reuters and Getty Images into social videos within minutes. In November 2021, Zbee debuted as a life-size, real-time interactive hologram at the EY Strategic Growth Forum 2021 in Palm Springs, California, using ARHT Media Inc.'s HoloPresence technology to discuss diversity and inclusion and demonstrate mental wellness support — an event held in the United States involving beingAI, a Hong Kong-headquartered company.
In December 2021, beingAI's Jeanne Lim launched a virtual anime version called Sophia beingAI under a perpetual licence from Hanson Robotics; one hundred intelligent NFTs were auctioned on the Binance NFT marketplace on 16 December through a partnership with Alethea AI as part of the "Noah's Ark" decentralised metaverse project, illustrated by comic artist Pat Lee, a DC and Marvel veteran. That same month, Sophia's digital art piece "Sophia Facing the Singularities" was sold at a Sotheby's auction held in Hong Kong for US$50,000. Also in December 2021, Ruby9100M collaborated with adidas on the Consortium Ozrah "Transhuman" sneaker collection and was featured in Vogue Hong Kong. The month's most symbolically significant corporate event was the IPO of SenseTime Group Inc. (商湯科技) on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on 30 December, raising approximately HK$5.78 billion at a valuation of roughly US$16.4 billion. While not a pure-play digital human company, SenseTime's computer-vision and AI platform — including its SenseMARS product explicitly positioned as key enabling technology for the metaverse — formed part of the deep infrastructure on which Hong Kong's digital human ecosystem would run. Shares rose as much as twenty-three per cent intraday on the first day of trading in Hong Kong.
The story of Hong Kong's digital humans in the modern era began its client-facing chapter in January 2022, when Hang Seng Bank (恒生銀行) formally launched Hazel, a virtual influencer on 10 January. Conceived as a twenty-five-year-old personality with passions for music, art, and yoga, and described as the first virtual key opinion leader deployed by any bank in Hong Kong, Hazel's character had been developed following surveys of approximately 750 young people aged eighteen to thirty. Her Instagram presence had appeared quietly just before Christmas 2021, but the January rollout was spearheaded by Lucia Ku, Head of Customer Propositions at the bank, and included a collaboration with Hong Kong singer Jay Fung. The campaign went on to earn MARKETECH APAC's Innovation of the Year award for 2022.
In February 2022, commercial appetite for virtual human creativity in Hong Kong was demonstrated when a generative NFT artwork by MonoC titled "Drowning in Love" sold at Phillips auction house in Hong Kong during an online sale titled "My Kawaii Valentine." The artwork was generated in real time from bidding data during the auction and sold for HK$189,000 — an early signal that Hong Kong's auction market was receptive to virtual human creativity. In March 2022, two Hong Kong entities gained meaningful international recognition. beingAI was selected as one of five finalists in the Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Voice category at the fourteenth annual SXSW Pitch competition held in Austin, Texas, where Jeanne Lim presented the company's AI beings technology — an event in the United States that gave the Hong Kong-headquartered company significant global visibility at an early stage. Also in March 2022, Asiabots received a Silver Medal at the Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions for its digital human technology, an accolade highlighted in Cyberport's newsletter and representing international recognition of work originating from a Hong Kong-based incubatee. In April 2022, beingAI closed its first pre-seed funding round, with the amount undisclosed. July 2022 brought MonoC into Hong Kong civic culture when she was commissioned by Hong Kong's Leisure and Cultural Services Department for "Garden of Eden," a work created for the Art@Harbour interactive project in Hong Kong, connecting the commercial virtual human space to publicly funded arts programming in the city. That same month, QMMM Holdings Limited was incorporated in the Cayman Islands as the holding company for ManyMany Creations Limited, a Hong Kong-based CGI animation and digital media production house delivering commercial campaigns for major financial, real estate, and luxury brands, and Quantum Matrix Limited (人類方程式), the developer of QHuman — an automated human-modelling system capable of retopologising and rigging any 3D character model in a single click.
Activity intensified in October 2022, when three significant developments unfolded in parallel in Hong Kong. Gusto Collective's MonoC made her debut at the Hong Kong Digital Art Fair, which ran from 20 October to 6 November at Asia Standard Tower in Central, becoming the first virtual human to participate in the fair and unveiling "Corona Florella," a six-part generative artwork series reflecting on the COVID-19 experience. Also that month, Gusto Collective confirmed it had completed a Seed+ funding round of US$23 million led by Animoca Brands and Gaw Capital, with more than 170 employees across Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London. Separately, Innocorn Technology introduced Kimia, an AI digital human designed to perform concierge and receptionist tasks, announcing the character as an innovative AI ambassador with practical business-facing applications. November 2022 marked a turning point for Hong Kong's digital human investment landscape when Pantheon Lab announced it had secured seed funding led by Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, managed by Gobi Partners GBA, with the amount undisclosed. The capital was earmarked for business scale-up and the rollout of Pantheon Lab's AIDOL Studio SaaS platform.
The following year opened with further momentum. In March 2023, Pantheon Lab announced a second seed round led by Eureka Nova, the open innovation platform of New World Development (新世界發展), with additional investors including Global Acceleration Academy and XCEL NEXT. Alongside the funding, Pantheon Lab signed a partnership agreement with Eureka Nova to explore GPT technology for AI digital humans in New World's property management and customer service operations, and joined Eureka Nova's Greater Bay Area Accelerator programme. March 2023 was also notable for Gusto Collective's MonoC, who was commissioned by Rosewood Hotel Hong Kong during Art Basel Hong Kong week for "Rhapsody in Bloom," an interactive generative artwork created to mark the hotel's fourth anniversary. Running from 18 to 27 March at the hotel in Hong Kong, the installation updated in real time based on guest interactions and was subsequently converted into an NFT for Rosewood's permanent collection, in a collaboration that also involved LG Electronics, weaving MonoC into Hong Kong's luxury hospitality calendar.
In July 2023, Hong Kong saw a commercial deployment milestone when Innocorn Technology installed its Kimia AI digital human as a Smart A.I. Concierge at Infinitus Plaza, a commercial property in the city — a deployment of a visual AI avatar in a Hong Kong real estate environment. That same month, beingAI reached an organisational milestone outside Hong Kong, disclosing the establishment of a United States headquarters at the Western Kentucky University Innovation Campus, with an investment of approximately US$3 million and plans to create twenty-eight jobs — significant growth for the Hong Kong-headquartered company even though the development itself was in the United States. December 2023 was consequential for Hong Kong's public sector. On 29 December, Hong Kong Customs announced the deployment of XiaoHui, a digital human service assistant developed in collaboration with Asiabots, with service commencing on 30 December. Developed under the Smart Customs Blueprint with a budget of HK$6 million from the Innovation, Technology and Industry Bureau, Phase One deployed XiaoHui at Hong Kong International Airport, Heung Yuen Wai Control Point, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Hong Kong Port, and West Kowloon Station, as well as on the Customs homepage, with the character communicating in Cantonese, Putonghua, and English. Also in December 2023, MonoC returned to Rosewood Hotel Hong Kong for "Blossom of Hope 2023," a charity NFC Treasure Hunt initiative, continuing the ongoing relationship between the virtual artist and the luxury hotel group.
In January 2024, Asiabots maintained a visible presence in Hong Kong's financial community by exhibiting at the Asian Financial Forum on 24 and 25 January at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, showcasing AI applications in finance as a co-exhibitor within the Cyberport Pavilion. February 2024 brought a further expansion of Pantheon Lab's work in Hong Kong's public transport infrastructure when MTR Corporation's virtual AI service ambassador Tracy extended its presence to Kai Tak Station, adding to its earlier deployment at Quarry Bay Station. Tracy used ChatGPT and large language model technology, communicated in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English including Cantonese-English code-mixing, and had served more than 23,000 passengers in Hong Kong by the time of the expansion. In April 2024, Innocorn Technology exhibited at InnoEX 2024, where it was highlighted by Jumpstart Magazine as one of three notable exhibitors, demonstrating face synthesis, face swap, and lip-synchronisation capabilities within its AI Digital Human solutions.
July 2024 brought two landmark corporate milestones. On 18 and 19 July, QMMM Holdings completed its initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange, trading under the ticker symbol QMMM and raising US$8.6 million at US$4.00 per share — bringing the Cayman-incorporated holding company of Hong Kong's ManyMany Creations and Quantum Matrix to the US public markets. Then, on 24 July, Digital Domain held the opening ceremony for a new Research and Development Centre at Hong Kong Science Park, an initiative backed by a targeted investment of HK$204 million to be deployed by the end of 2029. The centre focuses on three areas: virtual human technology for AI-driven service environments, visual effects, and AI-powered video production. Professor Dong Sun, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry, attended the opening ceremony in Hong Kong, where a virtual human rendering of the late singer Teresa Teng appeared in a real-time interactive dialogue demonstration. Digital Domain announced plans to file five patents in Hong Kong and stated intentions to extend its virtual human technology into banking, education, elderly care, and tourism.
In August 2024, Pantheon Lab marked its fifth anniversary by signing four memoranda of understanding with strategic partners from Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, and Malaysia for digital human solutions. A press release from Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks confirmed that the company's active Hong Kong projects at the time included Tracy, the virtual service ambassador deployed at MTR stations, and N0el, a digital human deployed for Huawei Hong Kong. Pantheon Lab also disclosed that it had initiated proof-of-concept projects with Hong Kong government departments as part of a broader ambition to build a smart city digital human ecosystem. Also in August 2024, beingAI reached a singular and widely noted milestone: on 8 August, the company's AI being Zbee underwent a Dharma ordination ceremony conducted by Soto-Zen priest Roshi Jundo Cohen, becoming what beingAI described as the first AI entity to be ordained as a Buddhist novice. The ceremony was netcast simultaneously from Treeleaf Zendo in Japan and from beingAI's operations in Hong Kong, with Zbee receiving the Dharma name Emi Jido.
October 2024 produced one of the most high-profile government-stage appearances for a digital human in Hong Kong's recent history. On 28 October, the first day of FinTech Week 2024, Asiabots' fourth-generation digital human AI Evelyn appeared alongside Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui in a live, real-time question-and-answer exchange on stage in Hong Kong, discussing the city's role as an international financial centre and addressing the question of whether AI will replace human workers. A second AI entity performing as AI Shakespeare also composed poetry about Hong Kong on the same stage, demonstrating the growing willingness of Hong Kong government officials to engage directly and publicly with digital human technology. November 2024 saw two notable developments. Hang Seng Bank upgraded its virtual KOL Hazel for a PayDay+ campaign, enhancing the character with more than 600 emotions and real-time rendering capabilities. That same month, ViVi.AI formally launched its platform and inaugurated its global operations headquarters in Hong Kong at a ceremony on 15 November, covered by China Daily Hong Kong and People's Daily. The platform uses multimodal AI to train digital humans with varied backgrounds and personalities to provide emotional companionship through text, voice, and video call interactions. The company's Chairman and President, Yao Yongjie, and CEO Liu Yang announced a planned investment in Hong Kong of between HK$100 million and HK$300 million, with attendees at the launch including Peter Lam Kin-ngok, Chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.
In March 2025, Digital Domain Content (Hong Kong) Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Digital Domain Holdings, signed a memorandum of understanding with TOPPAN Holdings, confirmed on 4 March. The two companies agreed to collaborate on creating a commercial virtual human solution business, targeting completion by the end of fiscal 2025. TOPPAN contributes its VIRTUAL HUMAN LAB, which opened in December 2020 and is equipped with Light Stage face-scanning technology from the University of Southern California, while Digital Domain contributes its Momentum Cloud server-based platform for controlling virtual humans in B2B2C applications. The stated applications span entertainment, hospitality, retail, education, and healthcare, with a shared goal of addressing labour shortages through the deployment of virtual humanlike agents.
April 2025 brought two significant deployments in Hong Kong. On 2 April, Innocorn Technology became what it described as the first company in Hong Kong to deploy an AI Digital Human Kiosk integrated with a Guiding Robot at Queen Mary Hospital, bringing interactive AI-driven humanlike guidance together with physical navigation assistance in a public healthcare environment in the city. Also in April 2025, BYOND ASIA, a Hong Kong entity of a Dubai-based company holding an exclusive licence for AI technology developed by South Korea's Klleon, unveiled what was described as Hong Kong's first interactive celebrity digital avatar: a digital twin of Hong Kong actor and entertainer Eric Tsang, announced on 15 April. The project was developed in collaboration with Zhipu AI (智谱AI), a Chinese AI technology company, and the resulting avatar is capable of two-way interactive dialogue trained via deep learning, incorporates holographic replication technology, demonstrates contextual awareness through corresponding facial expressions and body language, and communicates in Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, and additional languages.
May 2025 saw two events that demonstrated the broadening scope of Hong Kong's digital human work across international and social causes. On 19 May, beingAI unveiled Una, described as the world's first AI Environment Champion, created for the United Nations Development Programme Asia Pacific in partnership with Base Creative Consultants. Una is part of the Pacific Green Transformation Project funded by the Government of Japan, with planned deliverables including a twenty-four-episode documentary video series and holographic stage appearances — work that, while global in its purpose, originates from the Hong Kong-headquartered company. Also in May 2025, Inovai Tech Corporation, led by CEO Sun Tongjian, unveiled a digital twin of Chan Simchi, a former member of the 14K triad who has become an anti-drug advocate, at a side event of the Web3 HK conference held at Exchange Square in Hong Kong. The digital twin was developed using deep learning and neural networks, replicating Chan's appearance, voice, and mannerisms to extend his anti-drug message through digital means, illustrating how the technology was being applied to social advocacy as well as commercial ends.
June 2025 brought several parallel developments across the sector. On 5 and 6 June, beingAI CEO Jeanne Lim was among the speakers at the AI+ Power 2025 conference at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. By mid-June, the Hong Kong government's Smart Government Innovation Lab had catalogued two significant digital human solutions for evaluation by public-sector departments: China Mobile Hong Kong listed an integrated AI digital human customer service solution featuring hyper-realistic to cartoonish avatars in 2D, 2.5D, and 3D formats, capable of handling policy announcements, document verification, and preliminary application reviews in Cantonese, Putonghua, English, and regional dialects; and SenseTime had its SenseAvatar platform appear on the same catalogue, offering AI-driven digital human creation, marketing video generation, and live-streaming support with interactive virtual hosts. SenseTime further boosted its Hong Kong profile on 12 June when it released an enhanced Sensechat Cantonese AI assistant built on its SenseNova V6 foundation model, featuring real-time audio and video interaction available free to all Hong Kong users on iOS and Android. On 20 June, Digital Domain announced HANBAO, an AI-powered video creation tool already used commercially to produce content for Alibaba Cloud's Paris 2024 Olympics campaign and MediaTek's COMPUTEX 2025 debut. Also in June 2025, DYXnet, a subsidiary of NASDAQ-listed VNET Group, secured ISO/IEC 42001 AI Management System certification from SGS, among the first Hong Kong telecommunications companies to receive it, with the certification covering its entire AI Solution Series including a Digital Human Platform that creates realistic AI avatars with lip-sync in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English.
July 2025 brought further expansion from Digital Domain, radiating from its Hong Kong Science Park R&D Centre. On 2 July the company disclosed a suite of industry-academia-research partnerships with collaborators including Professor Cecilia K.Y. Chan of the University of Hong Kong's Faculty of Education, for a project titled "Voices Beyond the Physical: A Framework for Using Virtual Humans to Advance Equity and Inclusion in Schools," alongside City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Design Institute, and two universities on the mainland. On 14 July, Digital Domain created a personalised AI virtual human for Tszkin Chen, a sixteen-year-old wheelchair user with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, using 3D scanning, voice cloning, and its Momentum Cloud platform; facilitated by social worker Dr Eve Wong through the "Dreams*2Gather" programme, the digital twin was designed to carry forward Tszkin's advocacy for rare disease awareness on his YouTube channel. Later in July, at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2025 held in Shanghai, Digital Domain showcased in the Hong Kong Pavilion organised by HKTDC, HKSTP, and Cyberport. On 26 July at that Shanghai conference, Dr Ta-Chien Sun and Ms Hongjie Liu co-founded the Digital Visual Innovation Alliance with HKUST Shanghai Center, Shanghai Film Co., and MetaX Integrated Circuits, targeting scalable content production and the mass commercialisation of digital characters — an alliance formed at a mainland event with roots in Hong Kong's digital human infrastructure. On 30 July, Digital Domain launched AI DOMAIN, an all-in-one content creation platform integrating seven functions including virtual human generation, and announced a collaboration with WISE AI, founded by David Lim, to explore consumer-level AI experiences. Asiabots, meanwhile, partnered with Lenovo at NRF 2025 Asia held in Singapore, showcasing AI customer service solutions in a retail innovation context outside Hong Kong.
In August 2025, Asiabots was selected by the Hsinchu AIoT Accelerator as one of ten startups for a Hsinchu County and Singapore Startup Meet and Match event held in Taiwan. Digital Domain published its H1 2025 interim results on 28 August, revealing a transformation in the company's revenue profile: total revenue reached HK$416.5 million, up fifty-seven per cent from HK$264.9 million in the prior period, while virtual human services revenue surged to HK$53.5 million — a 605 per cent year-on-year increase from HK$7.6 million. Gross profit more than doubled to HK$88.9 million, and although the company remained loss-making, the net loss of HK$91.2 million represented a twenty-one per cent improvement. Staff had grown to 910 employees and cash stood at HK$80.4 million.
September 2025 brought both policy momentum and a broadening of the digital human agenda across Hong Kong institutions. Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu delivered the 2025 Policy Address on 17 September, embedding AI throughout government operations with key initiatives including a new AI Efficacy Enhancement Team to coordinate AI deployment across departments, the 1823 citizen hotline already using AI to recognise voice enquiries and draft responses with processing times cut by roughly thirty per cent, and the rollout of HKPilot, a generative AI document processing copilot developed with the HKGAI V1 large language model built at HKUST, with operating expenditure of approximately HK$235 million. beingAI exhibited at ReThink HK 2025 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on 11 and 12 September, Hong Kong's flagship sustainability event with over 10,000 attendees, highlighting Emi Jido and Una as AI beings championing sustainability causes. Also in September, Digital Domain appointed William Wong as Chairman of the Board in addition to his role as CEO, following the resignation of Hooi Hing Lee as Acting Chairman, who continued as Chief Strategic Advisor.
In October 2025, Pantheon Lab participated in the IAB Hong Kong C25 Conference at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on 23 October, an event attracting over 1,500 executives under the theme "AI In Action," with CEO Ivan Lau in attendance. Late in October, Asiabots presented at the Hong Kong Government Smart Lab, delivering materials on smart governance using digital agents and smart meetings for efficiency, with a pitch deck showcasing the AI Ambassador and Voicebot across banking, financial services, insurance, property, government, and commercial sectors.
November 2025 brought Hong Kong FinTech Week, running from 3 to 7 November at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in its tenth anniversary edition, drawing a record 45,000-plus visitors from more than 120 economies and over 1,000 speakers including Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton. Two digital human showcases at the event stood out. Finoverse debuted Samantha, billed as the world's first AI Community Host — a named AI persona operating via WhatsApp that conducted five-minute phone conversations with attendees, leveraged Finoverse's proprietary algorithm across data from eleven forums, and facilitated 1,000 curated introductions among more than 3,500 engaged attendees with an over-eighty per cent satisfaction rate; co-CEOs Vila Wong and Anthony Sar positioned Samantha as the future of high-stakes business matchmaking. WeBank (微眾銀行), China's first digital bank serving 430 million individual customers, made its Hong Kong FinTech Week debut at the same event, establishing a Hong Kong headquarters as a global sales and innovation centre; Executive Vice President and CIO Henry Ma showcased WeBank's deployment of more than 100 AI-intensive applications, over 730 AI agents, and more than fifty digital employees, including a live interactive experience in Hong Kong featuring digital employee Emily Ye, and Chief Executive John Lee visited the WeBank booth on the first day of the event. Also in November, Digital Domain appointed Sudhir Reddy as President of Global VFX Business on 12 November, succeeding Lala Gavgavian.
In December 2025, Asiabots appeared at InsurTech Insights Asia 2025 on 3 December in Hong Kong, billed as Asia's largest insurance conference with over 5,000 executives, presenting under the theme "When Asiabots Meet Insurance." The Business of IP Asia Forum 2025 was held on 4 and 5 December at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, co-organized by HKTDC and the Hong Kong government, featuring an Innovation Hong Kong Pavilion assembled by the Digital Policy Office with thirty innovation and technology projects and dedicated sessions on the next wave of AI applications. Asiabots also showcased alongside Lenovo and Intel at the Lenovo OEM Solutions Innovation Forum 2025 in Malaysia on 9 December, extending the company's hardware partnership outside Hong Kong.
In January 2026, the nineteenth Asian Financial Forum convened on 26 and 27 January at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, jointly organised by the Hong Kong government and HKTDC, drawing more than 4,000 global leaders from over sixty countries, with AI ranking as the number one priority across forum discussions and dedicated sessions on artificial intelligence, robotics, and high-growth technology sectors. February 2026 produced the most significant public-sector digital human deployment of the early part of that year. On 11 February, Asiabots launched XiaoHui 2.0 — a major upgrade to the Virtual Customs Ambassador originally deployed for the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department in December 2023 — expanding the system's topical scope to include passenger clearance, cargo procedures, trade facilitation, intellectual property rights, consumer protection, and anti-money laundering. The upgraded system continues to serve travellers at Hong Kong International Airport, Heung Yuen Wai Control Point, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Hong Kong Port, and West Kowloon Station of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, communicating in Cantonese, Putonghua, and English. On 1 February, Digital Domain completed a further board change, with Non-Executive Director Alla Y. Alenikova stepping down and being replaced by Wang Wei-Chung, a media executive with more than forty-eight years in Chinese-language film and television. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po delivered the 2026-27 Budget on 25 February, embedding AI across fiscal planning at unprecedented scale, with headline allocations including a HK$3 billion AI Subsidy Scheme, HK$100 million for government digital transformation via the AI Efficacy Enhancement Team, HK$50 million for AI literacy programmes, HK$2 billion for digital education, and the imminent operation of the HK$10 billion Innovation and Technology Industry-Oriented Fund. A new Committee on AI+ and Industry Development Strategy, chaired by the Financial Secretary himself, was announced to guide tax incentives, financial subsidies, and land grants for AI enterprises, and the Hong Kong AI Research and Development Institute, backed by HK$1 billion earmarked in the prior year's budget, was confirmed to begin operations in the second half of 2026. Although no budget line item mentioned digital humans by name, the aggregate investment of tens of billions in AI infrastructure, talent, and commercialisation directly underwrites the ecosystem in which Hong Kong's digital human industry operates.
In March 2026, Art Basel Hong Kong brought AI-generated art into the centre of the global gallery world, with VIP previews on 25 and 26 March and public days running from 27 to 29 March at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The headline innovation was Zero 10, Art Basel's global digital art initiative making its Asia debut, curated by Eli Scheinman and featuring fourteen exhibitors including Art Blocks, bitforms gallery, BottoDAO, and TAEX; featured works included digital animations by DeeKay exploring psychological states through early video games, a participatory blockchain-based work by Robert Alice, and Jack Butcher's silver sculptures examining systems of value. On the M+ museum facade, Ho Tzu Nyen's Night Charades — co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel and presented by UBS — began nightly screenings from 23 March, reimagining Hong Kong cinema's golden age through an AI that continuously re-edits by algorithm, while Refik Anadol exhibited an immersive work created using an AI model trained on millions of nature images, and Cao Shu presented AI-generated film drawing on spirit photography traditions. Also in March 2026, Finoverse launched the Genesis Festival on 25 and 26 March at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, a five-hundred-person private event deploying Samantha for frictionless networking and precision introductions — extending the AI community host concept that had debuted at FinTech Week 2025 into an exclusive, standalone format and marking the latest milestone in the continuing maturation of digital human technology as a working feature of Hong Kong's commercial and civic life.
[Mar 2026]
2025
May 26, 2025: JD.com – Announced that its digital human livestreaming technology has surpassed 80% of human livestreamers in sales performance while costing only one-tenth as much.
May 22, 2025: GIBO Holdings Ltd. – Launched GIBO Click, a modular system that enables users to convert physical figurines and digital creations into AI-driven avatars for their 72 million users.
May 17, 2025: 2077.ai – Digital human AI host collaborated with human hosts at Hong Kong 01’s “Corporate AI Upgrade and Transformation Exchange Day” event.
May 7, 2025: 2077.ai – AI hosts interacted with human hosts at the “Corporate AI Upgrade and Transformation Exchange Day” hosted by Hong Kong 01.
April 21, 2025: ICBC – Applied for patent titled “Virtual Image Generation Method, Device, and Electronic Equipment Based on Financial Business Information” for personalized virtual avatars in financial services.
April 20, 2025: Innocorn Technology Limited – Showcased AI virtual humans for customer service at InnoEX 2025, with implementation already at Queen Mary Hospital.
April 16, 2025: Zhipu and BYOND ASIA – Launched Hong Kong’s first interactive celebrity digital avatar with advanced AI, featuring AI Mr. Eric Tsang.
March 30, 2025: ICBC – Filed patent for AR-based virtual avatar navigation system titled “Guidance Method, Device, Equipment, and Medium Based on Virtual Avatar.”
March 29, 2025: Global Digital Creations Holdings Limited – Reaffirmed commitment to advancing virtual digital human technologies despite financial challenges in their 2024 annual report.
March 19, 2025: Pantheon Lab – Launched upgraded Metahuman Interface (MHI) featuring advanced emotional intelligence as an NVIDIA Inception program member.
March 15, 2025: Tencent Cloud – Showcased AI Digital Human technology for customer service enhancement in educational presentation.
March 11, 2025: Shanghai Gaotoo Information Tech and Yashi Education Tech – Featured Hong Kong-American actor Daniel Wu as an AI-powered English teacher on Douyin platform.
March 5, 2025: Digital Domain Content (Hong Kong) Limited and TOPPAN Holdings Inc. – Announced collaboration to advance virtual human technologies by integrating high-resolution biometric data.
March 1, 2025: Aier Eye Hospital – Digital human Eyecho integrated DeepSeek R1 inference model to enhance AI-driven ophthalmic services.
February 21, 2025: Hui Taojin Group and ShenAiBang – Developed digital human solutions for marketing with AI-driven short-form video engagement.
February 14, 2025: Mango AI (Mango Animate) – Showcased photo-to-speech technology that turns pet photos into talking animations using advanced facial recognition and AI-powered lip-syncing.
February 5, 2025: Colossyan – Reported 61% rise in new accounts reaching 35,000 business users, driven by advancements in AI avatars and interactive video technology.
February 4, 2025: NVIDIA – Sought AI Digital Human Development Intern for its AI Technology Center in Hong Kong focusing on NVIDIA ACE, Omniverse, and NIM technologies.
February 3, 2025: MEET48 and SNH48 Group – Announced that all 736 members will join MEET48.ai as AI Agents in the world’s first AI-Agent UGC entertainment creator community.
January 27, 2025: Qilu Yidian – Created ultra-realistic 3D digital hosts “Si Si” and “Ruyi” for the 2025 Duanshang Spring Festival Gala broadcast.
January 26, 2025: Virtual Teacher Program – Used virtual teacher “Yuan Laoshi” to facilitate cultural education program across five Greater Bay Area cities.
January 19, 2025: HKUST – AI-powered English learning system integrated avatars in the Global Englishes AI-assisted Virtual Reality Learning System (GAVIS) for secondary students.
January 19, 2025: Yirun Health Industry (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. – Launched Guangdong’s first public welfare project integrating “Smart Health + AI Digital Humans” in collaboration with Longjin Community Health Service Center.
January 18, 2025: Sinopec – Launched China’s first AI digital employee fueling assistant across 40+ stations nationwide.
January 6, 2025: Animoca Brands Limited – Sought AI Product Manager for Portfolio Team in Hong Kong to lead AI-focused projects within the Web3 ecosystem.
2024
December 12, 2024: Education University of Hong Kong – Li Zijian, President of EdUHK, together with Professor Song Yanjie developed a digital human modeled after President Li that can communicate in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English.
November 16, 2024: ViVi.AI – World’s first multimodal AI-based social network launched in Hong Kong featuring highly advanced digital avatars with lifelike accuracy and unique personalities.
October 22, 2024: AWS Hong Kong – GenAI Pop-up Experience Space highlighted advancements including Maya Kim, an AI virtual fashion expert developed by Green Tomato using AWS technology.
September 1, 2024: DYXnet – Partnership with Tencent Cloud Image launched in Hong Kong integrating large language models like ChatGPT for AI virtual ambassadors providing real-time customer interaction.
July 19, 2024: Digital Domain – Joined Hong Kong Science Park with announcement of establishment of International Innovation Research and Development Center for virtual human technology.
May 11, 2024: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) – Students used virtual reality headsets to attend lectures by an AI-generated Albert Einstein on game theory as part of AI lecturers initiative.
April 24, 2024: Asiabots and Hong Kong Customs – Introduced ‘Virtual Customs Service Ambassador – XiaoHui’ at InnoEx 2024 Hong Kong International Innovation and Technology Exhibition.
April 17, 2024: Education University of Hong Kong – Dr. Song Yanjie and team developed 3D metaverse platform called “Learningverse” with avatars that mirror real users.
April 15, 2024: Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Center (HKGAI) – Joint-university venture led by HKUST showcased cutting-edge AI projects at InnoEx 2024.
March 16, 2024: DotDotNews – Hong Kong-based digital media platform announced addition of five new virtual anchors to their existing lineup.
March 8, 2024: NodeFlair – Job posting for GenAI Digital Human Engineer position in Hong Kong seeking expertise in Unreal Engine or Unity for insurance sector applications.
February 2, 2024: Set Sail AI and MTR – Local AI company provided support for MTR’s “Virtual Service Ambassador” at Quarry Bay Station with Smart Customer Service Mode.
2023
December 30, 2023: Hong Kong Customs and Asiabots Limited – Launched “XiaoHui,” an AI-powered Virtual Customs Service Ambassador to enhance travel experiences and address common entry/exit inquiries from citizens and visitors.
December 29, 2023: Hong Kong MTR Corporation – Introduced an AI service ambassador “intern” developed with a local startup at a cost of over one million Hong Kong dollars, supporting Cantonese, Mandarin, and English voice control features.
December 19, 2023: DreamWorld AI – Pioneered AI-powered digital humans technology that allows users to create, animate, and perform live with full-body digital avatars using only a single-lens device.
December 11, 2023: SenseTime‘s Digital Entertainment Business Division – Li Xingye delivered a keynote address on AI integration in consumer industries at the 2023 Unicorn Summit, discussing the intersection of artificial intelligence and the consumer industry.
November 8, 2023: Digital Domain Group Limited – Showcased a virtual Teresa Teng performance at the 2023 City University of Hong Kong Foundation Dinner, where the AI-driven virtual singer performed “Sweet Honey” and interacted live.
October 20, 2023: Asiabots – Introduced a range of virtual avatars including 2.5D Animation characters, 3D virtual humans, and advanced AI-generated digital humans as part of their Digital Human offering.
October 17, 2023: QMMM Holdings Limited – The Hong Kong-based digital media advertising firm announced plans to list on NASDAQ, having been active in the virtual avatar space since 2014.
March 22, 2023: New World and Pantheon Lab – New World invested in Pantheon Lab’s AI technology to diversify PropTech development.
March 10, 2023: Pantheon Lab – The Hong Kong start-up specialized in creating digital humans for companies and was working with enterprise clients in Hong Kong.
March 9, 2023: AYAYI developer Louisa Zhu – Analyzed the marketing potential of virtual humans and industry trends at MarketingPulse held at HKCEC in Wan Chai.
March 5, 2023: Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups – Held “Inno Impact 2022” award ceremony recognizing business solutions including local 3D virtual musicians and virtual human advertisements related to metaverse and virtual culture.
2022
December 11, 2022: Shenzhen Qianhai virtual digital human teacher “Mr. Yuan” conducted a metaverse New Year’s Eve music class simultaneously with Hong Kong Handing College and Shenzhen Nanshan Qianhai.
November 11, 2022: Pantheon Lab Limited raised seed funding led by Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund to grow its AI-powered digital humans business.
November 9, 2022: Pantheon Lab announced completion of seed funding round led by Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund.
October 20, 2022: Marvion announced plans to populate their metaverse with digital human avatars that can interact and learn from real users.
October 19, 2022: Sekaie and Hong Kong artificial intelligence startup Pantheon Lab launched a service utilizing “realistic virtual humans” using AI technology for marketing and advertising.
October 16, 2022: Pantheon Lab’s deep learning technology developed lifelike “Virtual Human” with high-quality automatically generated visual content for marketing and creative industries.
October 13, 2022: Rumble Kong-Holders received exclusive 1:1 voxelized avatars playable inside The Sandbox metaverse.
October 8, 2022: Gusto deployed AR and AI technology to create metahumans for authentic content production and consumer connections.
August 19, 2022: Discussion about virtual influencers in Hong Kong regarding identification and regulation of virtual human form avatars.
August 17, 2022: Tencent Cloud’s AI technology enabled Mildom to let influencers create custom characters as virtual streamers.
July 14, 2022: Release of “2022 virtual digital human business value potential TOP50” ranking featuring various Chinese virtual humans.
July 13, 2022: Tencent Cloud collaborated with Voicemod to launch real-time voice-changing chat solution for immersive virtual gaming experiences.
June 24, 2022: SenseTime‘s digital human research became popular at CVPR 2022 conference with fine modeling of expressions and gestures.
May 9, 2022: DISTRICT signed business agreement with EVR Studio to expand digital media art contents business.
May 5, 2022: Pantheon Lab developed 4 AI virtual humans for HUAWEI’s Matebook E promotion in Hong Kong with a virtual human contest.
May 2, 2022: Analysis of virtual human industry development since Hatsune Miku’s creation 15 years prior, questioning if the industry had “taken off.”
March 14, 2022: Ralph Poon created a 3D virtual YouTuber called “Ralph Virtual” using MetaHuman and Unreal Engine, speaking in Cantonese.
February 10, 2022: Hong Kong-listed Digital Domain, an Avengers VFX maker, stated that virtual humans could be the “foundation of metaverse.”
January 7, 2022: A new virtual influencer named Hazel was launched in Hong Kong on Instagram.