{"slug": "former-deepmind-director-joins-hong-kong-polytechnic-university", "title": "Former DeepMind Director Joins Hong Kong Polytechnic University", "summary": "Cao Liangliang, a former director at Google DeepMind, has been appointed chair professor of data science and AI at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, effective June 29, 2026. The move brings a leader with experience in multimodal AI systems from Google, Apple, and OPPO to Hong Kong, potentially boosting applied research and industry collaboration.", "body_md": "PolyU appointed **Cao Liangliang** as chair professor of data science and AI effective **June 29, 2026**, after senior research roles at **Google DeepMind**, Google, Apple and OPPO, according to PolyU and SCMP. The move matters for practitioners because Cao's production background spans `Gemini`, Project Astra, Google Cloud Vision, Google Speech and Apple Intelligence, giving PolyU a faculty leader with experience across cloud, on-device and multimodal AI systems. Cao's personal site says he returned to Hong Kong after two decades in the United States, framing the hire as a bridge between MMLab-trained academic research and frontier-model product engineering. The practical signal is not a new model release, but a talent move that can influence applied research, graduate training and industry collaboration in Hong Kong.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/former-deepmind-director-joins-hong-kong-polytechnic-university", "canonical_source": "https://letsdatascience.com/news/former-deepmind-director-joins-hong-kong-polytechnic-univers-29b1cbf3", "published_at": "2026-07-09 02:30:34+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-09 03:15:11.405538+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-research", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Cao Liangliang", "Hong Kong Polytechnic University", "Google DeepMind", "Google", "Apple", "OPPO", "Gemini", "Project Astra"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/former-deepmind-director-joins-hong-kong-polytechnic-university", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/former-deepmind-director-joins-hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/former-deepmind-director-joins-hong-kong-polytechnic-university.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/former-deepmind-director-joins-hong-kong-polytechnic-university.jsonld"}}