By Joanna Tan · AI in APAC · October 22, 2026

HSBC is putting real headcount behind its AI ambitions in Hong Kong. David Liao, the bank’s co-chief executive for Asia and the Middle East, has announced plans to roughly double its Hong Kong AI specialist team from 150 to 300 over the next two to three years, alongside a dedicated AI research institute set to open in the city in 2027.

The build-out positions Hong Kong as HSBC’s largest AI hub in the region, outpacing the bank’s newly planned Singapore Global AI Centre of Excellence, which is slated to launch in the second half of 2026 with around 100 specialists. Liao described Hong Kong as “a core market” for the bank’s AI investment, with the research institute expected to anchor work on digital finance and emerging technology alongside HSBC’s parallel AI pushes in mainland China, the UK and the Middle East.

The announcement has also stirred some good-natured competitive energy between Asia’s two leading financial centres: local reports noted Hong Kong regulators had been keen to see how the bank’s hub decisions would shake out against Singapore’s own pitch for AI talent. For HSBC, splitting investment across both hubs — rather than picking one over the other — suggests the bank sees room for AI capability to grow in tandem across the region rather than concentrating it in a single centre.

For a city working to reassert itself as a technology and finance crossroads, a 300-strong AI specialist bench inside one of the world’s largest banks is a concrete signal, built on hiring and research infrastructure rather than announcements alone. It’s also a reminder that the APAC AI story isn’t only about startups and government strategy — incumbent financial institutions are quietly building serious in-house AI capacity of their own.

Source: South China Morning Post, “HSBC to double Hong Kong AI team to 300, outpacing Singapore plan,” 16 October 2026.

Joanna Tan covers AI investment, policy and business strategy for AIAPAC.ai Insights.