Pharos Network Collaborates with HKU-SCF FinTech Academy to Jointly Advance Research on Prediction Markets and AI Decision-Making
- Core Viewpoint: Pharos Network's collaboration with the University of Hong Kong aims to explore the application of AI in on-chain financial decision-making, such as prediction markets, through academic research. It seeks to transform outstanding research outcomes into incubated projects within its ecosystem, establishing a value loop from academia to industry.
- Key Elements:
- The collaboration takes the form of a Capstone project for HKU master's students. Research topics include the boundaries of collective prediction, event probability modeling, and the application of AI in predictive decision-making. Pharos provides real on-chain data and expert guidance.
- Pharos's technical core is its high-performance parallel execution engine, capable of achieving 30,000 TPS with sub-second finality. It has already deployed AI modules to support on-chain agent interactions, providing infrastructure for complex prediction markets.
- The academic goal is to advance prediction markets from entertainment/gambling towards becoming tools for real-world economic decisions, such as RWA pricing and corporate earnings forecasts, exploring their paradigm shift as economic decision-making instruments.
- Outstanding project results will have the opportunity to enter Pharos's global incubation program, receiving comprehensive support from its $10 million incubator fund to realize the transition from research to practical implementation.
On April 15, 2026, Pharos Network, an institution-grade financial Layer 1 public chain, announced a joint academic-industry research collaboration with the HKU-SCF FinTech Academy at the University of Hong Kong. This initiative is conducted under the framework of the HKU Business School Master's program Capstone Project and is integrated with the Pharos ecosystem incubation system. It aims to provide outstanding academic projects with comprehensive commercial incubation support, covering underlying technology, funding, and market resources.
This collaboration not only represents Pharos's cutting-edge exploration in the field of AI-driven asset decision-making but also marks a crucial step in its role as next-generation financial infrastructure by partnering with a top-tier Asian academic institution. It connects AI technology, elite academic talent, and real-world financial challenges.
Strategic Synergy: A Value Loop from Academic Research to Project Incubation
The Capstone Project is an open internship program for all HKU students. This specific project is overseen by HKU Assistant Professor of Finance Yang You as the academic advisor, responsible for guiding the research direction and ensuring academic quality. Eight HKU master's students from diverse professional backgrounds will conduct a three-month in-depth empirical study on frontier topics, including the effective boundaries of collective prediction, structured modeling of event probabilities, and the auxiliary application of AI models in predictive decision-making. Pharos will be deeply involved throughout the project, injecting real-world business perspectives and technical expertise by providing access to authentic on-chain datasets, sharing practical experience from institution-grade financial systems, and offering expert guidance. Outstanding project outcomes will have the opportunity to directly enter the Pharos Global Incubation Program, receiving end-to-end support from technical validation to market implementation, thereby forming a value loop of "academic research to industry validation to ecosystem integration."
Technical Exploration: How Pharos AI Capabilities Empower Prediction Markets and Intelligent Decision-Making
As the integration of artificial intelligence and the crypto industry becomes a trend, prediction markets, as a key application scenario connecting on-chain intelligent decision-making with real-world information, place extremely high demands on the performance of the underlying infrastructure.
Through this collaboration, Pharos will demonstrate the potential of its high-performance AI technology stack in supporting complex prediction applications. Pharos's underlying technology originates from the profound experience of its founders and technical team in digital payments and blockchain at Ant Group. Its core innovation—the "Smart Access List Inference (SALI) Parallel Execution Engine"—leverages advanced static and dynamic analysis to efficiently handle high-frequency concurrent on-chain transactions, achieving throughput of up to 30,000 TPS and sub-second finality. This capability is crucial for prediction market platforms that need to process massive volumes of bets, real-time settlements, and complex probability model computations.
Pharos has officially deployed the X402 AI module and is prepared at the protocol level for large-scale agent interactions. This means Pharos can not only support massive concurrent transactions but also efficiently facilitate information hedging, automated prediction, and real-time settlement among AI agents on-chain.
Wish Wu, Co-founder and CEO of Pharos, stated: "The core of prediction markets lies in the accuracy of 'data input' and 'value output,' which aligns perfectly with AI logic. Pharos is not only a settlement layer for financial assets but can also become a verification layer for 'information.' We hope that through this research collaboration, we can explore how to leverage Pharos's high-performance, low-latency infrastructure to support more complex on-chain + AI prediction models. This is also a key innovative direction within Pharos's $10 million incubator program, focusing on prediction markets for real-world event outcomes."
Yang You, Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Hong Kong, commented: "The commercial potential of prediction markets has been validated, yet their trading volume remains highly concentrated in entertainment scenarios such as sports betting and political gambling. This project aims to academically explore how to introduce binary option mechanisms into scenarios like RWA pricing, auction mechanism design, and corporate earnings forecasts, promoting a paradigm shift for prediction markets from entertainment gambling to tools for real economic decision-making. The collaboration with Pharos Network provides students with a practical opportunity to test these theoretical frameworks in a real technological environment. I look forward to the team contributing valuable research findings to the academic accumulation in this field through rigorous empirical analysis."
Through this collaboration, the student team will gain practical experience conducting frontier research on a real Layer 1 network, while the Pharos ecosystem will continue to absorb insights and innovative power from the academic forefront, jointly advancing the implementation and application of AI-driven decision-making technology in on-chain financial scenarios.
About Pharos Network
Pharos Network is a Layer 1 infrastructure designed for real-world finance, aiming to enable seamless circulation between on-chain assets and institution-grade assets. Pharos adopts a modular architecture and deep parallel execution technology, combined with built-in compliance modules, committed to building the next-generation infrastructure for global finance. Pharos is built by a top-tier team from Ant Group and is backed by global renowned investment institutions including a subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation, Hack VC, and Faction VC.
Pharos has launched a substantial $10 million "Native to Pharos" builder incubation program and is currently recruiting early-stage teams globally that focus on frontier areas such as RWA, DeFi, and prediction markets, as well as builders and developers dedicated to the Pharos ecosystem. Selected participants will receive technical guidance, AI developer tools, and ecosystem resource support from Pharos, along with support from institutional partners like Hack VC, Draper Dragon, Lightspeed Faction, and Centrifuge. Learn more: https://www.pharos.xyz/ecosystem.
