Professor Sai-Kit YEUNG from HKUST’s Division of Integrative Systems and Design (ISD), the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), and the Department of Ocean Science (OCES) has been interviewed by RTHK Radio 1 “Infinite Future” on his research about Marine AI and Systems Design. 

As a pioneer in building marine AI foundation models for scene understanding, particularly in coral reef understanding, Prof. Yeung has applied this advanced technology into coral image segmentation which enhances the speed and accuracy of data analyses in ocean science. This AI-powered technology provides vital insights for policymakers to better understand and plan for marine conservation. The biggest advantage introduced by AI technology is that we could perform large-scale, efficient and repeated coral reef surveying and monitoring, yielding corresponding biological reports regarding the status of coral reefs (such as coral population, growth rate, species distribution).

The research team led by Prof. Yeung is currently developing underwater robots designed to clean up ocean floor. By creating detailed 3D maps of the seabed, the robots are able to patrol and remove garbage on the ocean floor efficiently.

Tune in Prof. Yeung’s interview with RTHK Radio 1 “Infinite Future” to learn more: 

https://www.rthk.hk/radio/radio1/programme/infinitefuture/episode/986782

About Prof. Sai-Kit YEUNG:

Prof. Sai-Kit Yeung is an expert in computer vision and computer graphics, with research interests spanning 3D vision and visual understanding, generative AI, computational design and fabrication, and human-AI interaction. Recently, he has collaborated closely with marine biologists to develop innovative AI technologies and integrative systems addressing challenges in marine biodiversity and sustainability. He has published extensively in premier computer vision and graphics venues, with numerous full oral papers presented at CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, and AAAI. His work has received Best Paper Honorable Mention Awards at ICCP 2015 and 3DV 2016.

Prof. Yeung has been actively serving as a senior committee member in major AI, computer vision, computer graphics, and robotics conferences. These include roles as a Senior Program Committee member for IJCAI 2021 and AAAI 2021 and 2022, an Area Chair for ICCV 2023, CVPR 2023, 2024, and 2025, and NeurIPS 2024, as well as an Associate Editor (Robot Learning) for ICRA 2024 and 2025. He also served as Course Chair for SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 and regularly contributes as a Technical Papers Committee member for Eurographics, SIGGRAPH, and SIGGRAPH Asia. Currently, he is an Associate Editor of the ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG).