Five InnoBay deep-tech startups took the stage on 15 October 2026 as Tsinghua University's PBCSF AI cohort and alumni — around 60 entrepreneurs and investors — visited HKUST InnoBay. The delegation was received at HKUST's Clear Water Bay campus by the Office of Knowledge Transfer (OKT) and InnoBay.
The startups that pitched
- HyBay Semiconductor — hybrid wide-bandgap power switches (GaN + SiC) for 800V AI data-centre power delivery. Building the power stage that next-generation AI racks need.
- ModeIO — a data security and compliance foundation built for the AI-agent era; its Safety LLM reaches SOTA on several public benchmarks.
- Optima AI — an AI-native conversational commerce platform that lets an SME run an entire store in natural language.
- HelioVision — perovskite vision sensors with external quantum efficiency above 90% and nine-colour sensing, already working with Huawei, Geely and United Imaging Healthcare.
- EmergingX — a full-stack large-model computational pathology platform delivering clinical-grade tumour diagnosis.
Opening the session, OKT and InnoBay presented HKUST's knowledge-transfer ecosystem and shared the university's cumulative track record: more than 1,700 incubated startups, including 10 unicorns and 11 listed companies. Michael Gao, co-founder and CEO of Hong Kong payments unicorn RedotPay, closed with a keynote on AI investment and industry collaboration.
Interested in these teams?
InnoBay and OKT welcome conversations with investors, corporate partners and talent who want to work with these startups — from co-development and pilot projects to investment and hiring. Write to hkustinnobay@ust.hk and we will connect you with the right team.
Event Photos
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