Lingnan University Research Team Won Gold Award for Contributing to Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction in Smart Buildings
Global AI Challenge for Building E&M Facilities 2025
Global AI Challenge for Building E&M Facilities
Gold Award
President Professor S. Joe QIN
“This award highlights Lingnan University's firm commitment to promoting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through innovative technology. Lingnan University has always integrated the concept of sustainable development into its teaching and research, while also demonstrating the university's interdisciplinary strengths in the fields of data science and sustainable development. We look forward to deepening our cooperation with the industry to empower green buildings with AI technology and contribute solutions to global carbon reduction goals.”
AI accurately predicts building energy consumption, solving energy conservation challenges in high-density cities
In densely populated cities like Hong Kong, building energy consumption accounts for 80% of the city's total energy consumption, with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems alone consuming as much as 12.3 billion Hong Kong dollars in electricity annually. Energy conservation and emissions reduction have become critical to achieving the “Carbon Neutrality” goal. A research team from Lingnan University has developed an AI model that successfully addresses the widespread issue of “excessive air conditioning supply” in Hong Kong buildings. The model accurately predicts the hourly cooling load for four test buildings over the next 30 days and demonstrates excellent generalization capabilities, providing algorithmic support for energy efficiency optimization across various building types.
The award-winning research team includes Dr. LIU Yiren, a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Data Science at Lingnan University; LI Jicheng, a doctoral candidate; and ZHU Zhongxi, who is about to enroll in the doctoral program. Dr. LIU Yiren explained that the model has been tested in real-world scenarios such as the Hong Kong International Commerce Centre and the Shenzhen Dashi Smart Building, with significant predictive effectiveness. Based on this technology, the team further developed an HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) smart management platform, which dynamically adjusts cooling load demands using real-time meteorological data and integrates an energy consumption visualization system to assist management decisions, significantly improving energy efficiency.
Future direction: Integrating large language models to create energy-saving AI that can hold conversations
Building on the success of the competition, the Lingnan University team is driving the deep integration of technology with more advanced AI. The next phase of the plan involves introducing large language models (LLMs) and AI agent technology, combining predictive algorithms, strategy optimization, and intelligent interaction capabilities. This will enable building managers to directly access AI-generated energy-saving solutions via natural language, further lowering technical barriers and accelerating the large-scale adoption of smart buildings.
The “Global AI Challenge for Building E&M Facilities” is Asia's first top-tier competition focused on the integration of building MEP systems and AI, covering two main tracks: “AI Model Development” and “Building Engineering Innovation Solutions.” It provides a platform for academia, industry, and startups to showcase their technologies and collaborate.