Engineering professor and lawmaker William Wong says one of the reasons The Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC) chose start-up "SmartMore" for its inaugural investment was its plan to base future research in the SAR.

"Apart from the financial return, part of it is the promise to create more positions for researchers. The Smart-More company promised to actually establish an research centre, an AI research centre, in Hong Kong and all these things are actually favourable to Hong Kong developing into an international information technology hub," Wong said on RTHK's Hong Kong Today programme.

The government investment vehicle and SmartMore signed a cooperation deal on Wednesday. The company is involved in artificial intelligence and smart manufacturing.

HKIC's CEO Clara Chan has said there will be different investment themes with AI in June, life sciences in July, and new energy technology in August. Professor Wong, who is the associate dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the Chinese University, was also asked for his views on these investment themes and whether they would suit Hong Kong.

"From this particular case, you can see the government is working very hard step by step... to satisfy the KPIs," he said referring to the investment term 'Key Performance Indicator'.

Earlier, the Financial Secretary Paul Chan hailed the partnership between the government-owned investment vehicle and the local tech unicorn, saying it would help boost Hong Kong's innovation and technology industry.