For Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB), 2025 was a defining year of its global development—one that sees CKGSB integrate AI-driven transformation, Global South partnerships, inclusive leadership, and cutting-edge research with real-world impact. From Sydney to Jakarta, London to Beijing, CKGSB faculty, alumni, and partners helped shape some of the year’s most pertinent conversations on global economic transitions, technology, sustainability, and leadership.
CKGSB’s 2025 agenda opened with significant global momentum. The school co-hosted the RCEP Business Forum and as well as the Global Unicorn Program in Sydney in collaboration with the University of Sydney Business School on February 11 , bringing together 200 senior policymakers, scholars, and industry leaders to examine how Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)—the world’s largest trade bloc—can build resilient supply chains and advance a greener economic transition. CKGSB Founding Dean Xiang Bing emphasized that deeper integration, rather than fragmentation, would define the future of prosperity in the RCEP region.
CKGSB was represented by its dean Li Haitao at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2025 in March. Dean Li emphasized China’s unique manufacturing depth, innovation-scaling capacity, and the need for globally integrated strategies are key for Chinese companies to building sustainable competitiveness amid shifting global value chains.
In Beijing on June 18, CKGSB’s 9th China Economic Symposium continued to serve as a trusted platform for economists, diplomats, and senior executives seeking clarity on China’s outlook and growth path. CKGSB Professor Li Wei drew on CKGSB’s proprietary Business Conditions Index to map shifting sentiment among China’s private companies. Panels with business and opinion leaders—such as Financial Times’ Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator Martin Wolf—explored how to unlock domestic demand and support private firms in an increasingly competitive environment—illustrating CKGSB’s role as a trusted bridge between global stakeholders and China’s evolving economy.
CKGSB’s Dean Li Haitao views the Global South as a new growth pole of the world economy as we enter ‘globalization 2.0.’ In 2025, CKGSB ran more than 50 global programs and modules, empowering 1,000+ business leaders with on-the-ground knowledge and practices in not only developed markets but also emerging markets including Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. In light of this trend, CKGSB has been pivoting its thought leadership around global strategies for business leaders to find their next growth curve.
CKGSB’s Global South Development Forum—co-hosted with the Ibero-American Sports Council in Beijing on July 29—offered a fresh perspective on how sports can catalyze inclusive development across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. CKGSB Dean Li Haitao called for vertically and horizontally integrated value chains that link China’s strengths in manufacturing, digital services, and AI with Global South markets.
CKGSB’s work in the Global South extended further with the release of a first-of-its-kind report jointly published by CKGSB and IE University’s China Observatory and Africa Program, analyzing how African citizens perceive China’s growing economic presence across the continent.
These efforts build upon CKGSB’s earlier Global South engagement, highlighted in April 2025 by a partnership agreement with the AIM Global Foundation announced at the 14th AIM Congress in Abu Dhabi, which gives CKGSB an vantage point to advance trade, sustainable investment, and leadership development between China and GCC countries.
Together, these initiatives positioned CKGSB as a key voice in redefining global economic dialogue—not only between China and developed economies, but among emerging economies in the Global South, including Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
AI remained the defining thread of CKGSB’s 2025 programs’ offering and impact in China and globally. CKGSB’s Dean Li Haitao shared his vision to create an AI+ ecosystem empowering over 10,000+ enterprises in AI transformation over the next decade. The school has begun creating this momentum through an array of events, research, and programs on AI, such as Asia Start and the Global Unicorn Program series.
In 2025, more than 1,000+ students have joined CKGSB’s study tours and company visits on AI and its applications. More than 100 events, large and small, were organized around the topic of AI, convening 10,000+ business leaders in various sectors who aspire to catch up on this trend.
At the “Digital Resilience: AI and China’s Digitalization in a Fractured World” webinar co-hosted by CKGSB and Asia House on July 1, CKGSB Professor Sun Tianshu argued that CEOs must become “AI architects,” redesigning business models, workflows, and talent systems around AI capabilities. Professor Teng Bingsheng highlighted China’s unique open-source LLM ecosystem, which has fostered rapid AI advancement despite hardware constraints.
These perspectives carried onto the global stage at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2025 in Tianjin, where CKGSB assumed an unprecedented role as the most active Chinese business school, with Dean Li Haitao speaking at three flagship sessions on China’s AI advantage, entrepreneurship in a new era, and sustainability-driven leadership.
CKGSB also advanced academic understanding of AI with the launch of China and the Global AI Race, a comprehensive white paper analyzing China’s emerging role in applied AI, robotics, open-source innovation, and deep-tech commercialization, positioning CKGSB as a thought leader at the intersection of AI research and business strategy.
CKGSB further solidified this positioning at the Tech in Asia Conference in Jakarta on October 22, where its session “Unlocking China’s AI Advantage for SEA Founders” drew more than 200 C-suite leaders and founders. Dean Xiang Bing emphasized the importance of embedding philanthropy and societal impact into AI-enabled entrepreneurship—an essential mindset for the next generation of unicorn founders in Southeast Asia.
In 2025, inclusion remained a core pillar of CKGSB’s mission. Now in its 12th year, the school’s flagship Women in Leadership Forum, held in Beijing on December 2, brought together over 500 business leaders, academics, and entrepreneurs to explore how women are shaping China’s digital future.
Groundbreaking research by Professor Zhang Xiaomeng, based on more than 11,000 surveys, challenged stereotypes about women and Generative AI. Her findings show that women in China use AI more frequently than men and that anxiety about AI decreases as usage increases.
The Women in Leadership Forum also marked the release of She Innovates: Women Shaping China’s Digital Future, CKGSB’s latest bilingual report featuring Professor Zhang’s research and profiles of seven CKGSB alumnae who are driving advances in semiconductors, health tech, cultural industries, and data infrastructure. The publication underscored how women leaders are actively leading China’s next wave of digital transformation.
2025 was a landmark year for CKGSB’s research excellence. The school co-organized the China International Conference in Finance (CICF) 2025 in Shenzhen—Asia’s most influential finance conference—featuring Nobel Laureate Thomas J. Sargent, who presented work co-authored with CKGSB Professor Wang Neng, Program Chair for this year’s CICF.
Throughout the year and across fields, CKGSB faculty published 50+ papers on top-tier academic journals on topics including but not limited to liquidity provision and monetary economics, stock market inefficiencies and AI evaluation framework. Many professors were recognized by global awards including:
In addition, CKGSB has continued to support its professor in actively engaging with leading scholars for academic exchange. More than 40 international academic seminars were organized throughout the year, bringing together scholars from top global institutions, such as USC Marshall, Yale, UCLA and Carnegie Mellon, promoting the exchange of cutting-edge academic ideas between the East and the West.
Our faculty’s research not only advanced academic fields—it informed policymakers, investors, and business leaders navigating technological and economic shifts.
CKGSB’s 24,500-strong alumni community continued shaping China’s innovation landscape and its integration with global markets. In 2025:
The momentum of 2025 converged on the school’s 23rd anniversary on November 21 with a milestone announcement: CKGSB’s first permanent Beijing campus is set to open in 2026. Located in the heart of Beijing, Ciqikou, or “China Gateway,” the 30,000-square-meter campus will house classrooms, digital studios, research labs, and collaborative spaces for alumni, executives, and international partners.
The building’s modern design—resembling a vessel setting sail—symbolizes CKGSB’s mission to nurture responsible, globally minded leaders who will shape the next era of global business.
CKGSB’s achievements in 2025 underscore the school’s evolution into a next-generation business school—one that bridges China with the rest of the world, connects academia with industry, and shapes global conversations on AI, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and inclusive growth.
As CKGSB prepares for a new chapter in its new Beijing campus, its message to global executives, rising leaders, faculty, and partners is clear: the future of business education lies in understanding change—and leading it.
