Macao Polytechnic University won the silver award in the Huawei Ascend AI Innovation Competition Guangdong Finals

The 2023 Huawei Ascend AI Innovation Competition Guangdong Finals Scene

The Guangdong finals of the 2023 Huawei Ascend AI Innovation Competition, held successfully at Guangdong University of Technology on September 24. Since its launch, the competition has attracted 151 teams from companies and universities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, with over 400 professional developers participating. A total of 58 high-level innovative projects advanced to the regional finals. The project "Online Ride-Hailing Price and Demand Prediction Based on a Hybrid Machine Learning Model" from Macau Polytechnic University (MPU) won the Silver Award, making it the only winning project from Macau higher education institutes.

The Guangdong finals of the 2023 Huawei Ascend AI Innovation Competition carried the theme "The Future of Digital Intelligence Comes Because of You", which was supervised by the Guangzhou Municipal Industry and Information Technology Bureau, the Artificial Intelligence Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance (AITISA), and the Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance (AIIA), and co-organized by the GRG Research and the Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. It aimed to promote innovation and practical applications, encouraging developers across industries to leverage the Ascend AI technology for industry-specific and deployable solutions, fostering the integration of technology and industries, selecting and nurturing a group of outstanding AI talent teams and high-quality projects, and promoting the vibrant development of the artificial intelligence industry in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The assessment panel of the competition consisted of Ascend AI experts and industry professionals from various fields. The projects were evaluated based on technical innovation, business value, and user experience, from multi-dimensions, determining the winners of gold, silver, and bronze awards. The UbilabAI team from Faculty of Applied Sciences, MPU, composed of Ph.D. students, Chou Ka Seng, Wong Kei Long, Shen Lu, and Master student, Zhang Boliang, went to the finals with their project, called "Taxi Demand and Fare Prediction with Hybrid Models: Enhancing Efficiency and User Experience in City Transportation". In a remarkable performance, they triumphed over other shortlisted teams, securing the coveted silver medal. Their project is geared towards resolving various challenges plaguing the online ride-hailing industry, including inaccurate fare estimations, suboptimal vehicle dispatching efficiency on the platform, and income instability for drivers. To contribute to the development of artificial intelligence industry in China and the Greater Bay Area, it further demonstrates the efforts of MPU in promoting smart cities and industry-academia research collaboration, and making contributions to optimizing the work in the industry. Remarkably, the project's findings have earned international recognition through publication in esteemed journals.