AI Safety Hong Kong

We are a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the safe and beneficial development of artificial intelligence.

Based in Hong Kong, we bring together researchers, professionals, and policymakers to strengthen understanding of AI risks and governance, with a focus on long-term societal impact. Our work includes public education, expert-led seminars, and collaborative initiatives that connect global AI safety insights with local industry and policy contexts.

We engage with corporate partners to support responsible AI adoption, offering opportunities for staff training, thought leadership events, and cross-sector dialogue. AI Safety Hong Kong is committed to rigorous, evidence-based perspectives and maintains strong connections with leading international research communities. By partnering with us, organizations can contribute to shaping a trustworthy AI ecosystem while positioning themselves at the forefront of responsible innovation in the region.

Our Team

We are Hong Kongers, and we care deeply about the future of Hong Kong and the world.

AI Safety Hong Kong is built by a passionate, team who believe that our city has a vital role to play in shaping the safe development of artificial intelligence.

As AI systems grow more powerful, the decisions we make today will echo for generations. Our team is united by a simple conviction: that Hong Kong's unique position as a global crossroads of East and West, finance and technology, innovation and tradition, makes it an essential voice in the international AI safety conversation.

We are not waiting for the future to happen to us. We are working to ensure that AI benefits everyone, starting with the communities we call home.

Core Team

Kenneth Chan

Kenneth is Managing Director of Effective Altruism Hong Kong. A teacher, writer and community builder, he has a decade of teaching experience in the high school classroom and has helped thousands of students achieve their academic goals. To maximize and scale his impact, he subsequently launched GiveWise, the first tax-efficient effective giving platform in Asia, connecting Hong Kong donors to the most effective global charities. After completing the BlueDot Technical AI Safety and Frontier AI Governance courses, he gathered together a group of committed indviduals to start AI Safety Hong Kong.

Chris Barnes

Chris is a Risk Technology Product Lead in Hong Kong’s banking sector and a dual-track alumnus of Bluedot Impact’s Governance and Technical Safety programs. With AI Safety HK, he applies his deep expertise in systemic risk mitigation and product leadership to the complex challenge of AI safety. Chris is dedicated to building a professional safety community in Hong Kong that strategically connects high-potential regional talent with international safety standards and research opportunities.

Aya Lowe

Aya Lowe is a technology policy and digital safety advisor with 15 years of experience across APAC and the Middle East spanning government, media, and the tech sector. She has worked with organisations including Meta, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, and leading international media outlets, focusing on AI safety, misinformation, online harms, and digital integrity.

Dr Abeer Sharma

Abeer has been active in the AI safety and governance space since 2023, with 9 certifications in the field (and counting), multiple research fellowships, and volunteer contributions to AI safety organisations. His research focuses on the governance, regulation, and societal impacts of emerging technologies, with particular interest in institutional and legal design. His AI governance work spans the full range of institutional, regulatory, and philosophical questions raised by advanced AI systems. He holds a PhD in Law from HKU, with a published research track record and multiple academic awards. As a lawyer with multijurisdictional experience, he has advised sovereign states, regulators, and tech enterprises, and also advises emerging startups and protocol teams on governance design, regulatory and market-entry strategy, and compliance-by-design.

Advisory Board

Tzu Kit Chan

Chief of Staff, Atlas Computing

Tzu is Chief of Staff at Atlas Computing and an AGI preparedness advisor to decision-makers across Southeast Asia. Over the past four years, he has been deeply embedded in the AGI preparedness community — did operations for MATS, cofounded Caltech AI Alignment, ran Stanford AI Alignment, and serving on the board of Berkeley AI Safety. He has also advised 45+ top university and national AI safety groups worldwide.

Beyond AI, Tzu represented Malaysia at the 2019 International Philosophy Olympiad and later founded a critical thinking nonprofit as a two-time Davis Fellow at age 20. With extensive operations and coaching experience, Tzu brings a rare combination of strategic execution, cross-cultural advisory, and grassroots movement-building to AI safety in Hong Kong and beyond.

Contributors

Dr Alice Wong

Assistant Lecturer, HKU

Alice is an Assistant Lecturer at The University of Hong Kong, teaching courses on the fundamentals of AI and machine learning in the AI, Ethics, and Society MA program, and formal methods in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics MA program. She holds a PhD in Computational Science from Chapman University, where she also completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Brain Institute investigating the sense of agency. Her academic background sits at the intersection of neuroscience, machine learning, and data science, giving her a distinctive perspective on how intelligent systems—biological and artificial—learn, decide, and act. More recently, she has been interested in the development of large(r) language models and transformers, with a particular interest in how insights from cognitive science can inform AI alignment and safety.

Hayden So

Senior, HKUST

Dr Baber Rehman

AI Compiler Engineer, Huawei HK

Hayden is currently Chief of Staff at FarmWorks, building the AI operating system for agriculture and one of East Africa's largest aggregator of fresh produce. His primary interest spans the geopolitics of AI and its downstream economic impact on society. Previously, he has worked in HK's government, both at Hong Kong's office to the EU in Brussels, focussed on trade and economic affairs, as well as domestic governance on a district level in HK's administrative service. He has also done applied mechanistic interpretability research in the domain of ML in the physical sciences. Beyond AI safety and governance, he has exposure in tech consulting and energy infrastructure investments.