Hong Kong is strengthening its innovation and technology (I&T) ecosystem as part of its push to become a leading international I&T hub, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun Dong said on Wednesday.

Sun was speaking at the launch ceremony of a new technology for the early detection of autism spectrum disorder in children launched by Chinese University's Faculty of Medicine and MicroSigX.

"This vision builds on our flourishing life and health technology research, underpinned by the close collaboration among the government, industry, academia and research sectors," he said.

To fuel this growth, Sun said authorities are directing more funding to help local universities commercialise their research outcomes.

He highlighted two key initiatives, which include the Research, Academic and Industry Sectors One-plus Scheme, which has so far supported 49 projects in the first two rounds across fields like health sciences, new materials, artificial intelligence and robotics, with total funding exceeding HK$2 billion.

The other, he said, being the InnoHK initiative, which fosters global collaboration by attracting top researchers to work with local institutions and promotes technology transfer.

"It is worth noting that MicroSigX's technology is in part underpinned by the research conducted at Microbiota I-Centre, a research centre established under InnoHK," he said.

"We are happy to see that our research centres under InnoHK are turning upstream R&D into real application and products in the market."

The ultimate goal, he emphasised, is to advance I&T and harness technological breakthroughs for the benefit of society as a whole.