The Commissioner for Digital Policy Tony Wong said Hong Kong aims to launch a locally developed chatbot in the second half and that it may be available for use free of charge in the initial stage.

The Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Center is developing local large language models, and its generative AI document processing application HKPilot has been used by government departments since last year.

In an exclusive interview with RTHK, Wong said he hopes the application can improve work efficiency and, in the long run, replace traditional jobs that require a lot of manpower.

He expects HKChat's launch in the second half to bring great convenience to the people of Hong Kong.

"For instance, Hong Kong residents may want to apply for some government services and they may not know where to find the services or what the procedures are," he told RTHK.

"Because the chatbot is trained with data from Hong Kong and we provided it with a lot of information, it will answer you in detail the things you have to prepare and the procedures when applying for the services."

Wong was speaking ahead of the annual World Internet Conference's Asia-Pacific summit at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on Monday and Tuesday, the first time it is being hosted in the SAR.

He expects the summit to attract more than 1,000 officials and business representatives from around the world, like the Six Little Dragons from Hangzhou which include DeepSeek and Unitree Robotics.

He hopes Hong Kong can make use of its advantage of being connected with both the mainland and the world.

"We hope we can demonstrate our strength in innovation and technology to the outside world through Hong Kong and seek more room for its development," he said.

"The World Internet Conference uses Asia-Pacific summit as its theme, hoping to connect different countries in the Asia-Pacific region and paying special attention to the development of emerging markets in the Global South."

The commissioner said the authorities will go all out in making a success of the summit and hope it can be hosted in Hong Kong again next year.