AI boom will sustain Hong Kong’s export surge, lift GDP outlook, economists say

Baptist University’s Billy Mak says rising export values also reflect higher prices for AI components and relative easing in China-US trade tensions Billy Mak Sui-choi, an associate professor at Baptist University’s accountancy, economics and finance department, said global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) remained far from saturated and would continue to drive exports. “No single country has yet been able to dominate the AI field across models, services and hardware,” he said. “As long as countries see an opportunity to compete, they will continue investing in the necessary hardware.” Mak noted that while initial AI demand centred on Nvidia’s graphics processing units, businesses realised that a broader ecosystem was required, including memory chips, photovoltaic modules and motherboards, helping to explain Hong Kong’s strong exports and re-exports from mainland China. Provisional figures released by the Census and Statistics Department on Monday showed the value of exports climbed to a record HK$641.1 billion (US$81.7 billion) after a 40.8 per cent rise in May.

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