I am an assistant professor at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Before joining HKU, I received Ph.D. degree at the College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, supervised by Prof. Dusit Niyato. Prior to this, I received B.Eng. degree at Beijing Jiaotong University, China, supervised by Prof. Jiayi Zhang. I am now the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Network Intelligence and Computing Ecosystem (NICE) Lab @ HKU. The NICE lab focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence and computer networks, aiming to advance next-generation intelligent networks and distributed AI systems:

Our research is primarily centered around the utilization of Generative AI in Intelligent Networks. The key objective is to explore "how the intelligent networks can support various AI-Generated Content (AIGC) services", and "how generative AI can improve the intelligent network performance, security, and reliability". This involves exploring the integration of various networking methodologies:

1. AI for Network:
   • Generative artificial intelligence and network optimization
   • Reinforcement learning and its applications in computer networking systems
   • AI-enabled semantic communications
   • Human-centric AI for user-centric network design
2. Network for AI:
   • Distributed training and inference of large AI models
   • Next-generation wireless transmission technologies
   • Edge intelligence

I have multiple openings for PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, visiting students, and interns. Please find more details here.

News

1. [Jan/2025] I am honored to join as an Associate Editor for the Intelligent Communications: Modelling, Operation and Digital Twin track of IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (IEEE COMST). Eager to contribute to advancing research in this field.

2. [Jan/2025] As the corresponding author, I’m happy that our paper “Supervised Score-Based Modeling by Gradient Boosting” has been accepted to the Thirty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-25). See you in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania!

3. [Jan/2025] I am honored to join as an Associate Editor for the Big Data and Machine Learning for Communications track of IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society (IEEE OJ-COMS). Looking forward to serving the research community in this role.

4. [Dec/2024] I am honored to join as an Associate Editor for the Machine Learning and Communications track of IEEE Transactions on Communications (IEEE TCOM). I look forward to serving our research community and advancing the field in this new role.

5. [Dec/2024] I am honored to receive the IEEE ComSoc Best Young Professional Award in the “Best Early Career” category.

6. [Dec/2024] Our paper “Blockchain-Aided Secure Semantic Communication for AI-Generated Content in Metaverse” has been awarded the 2023 Best Paper Award from IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society by the IEEE Computer Society Publications Board.

7. [Nov/2024] I am invited as a keynote speaker at the International Conference on the Next Generation Intelligent Networks, organized by Xijiao Institute for Cyber Science and Technology.

8. [Nov/2024] Our project “Gaiety: Generative AI-empowered Edge Hub for Accessible and Immersive Meta-Home” received a Honorary Mention in the 2024 ComSoc Student Competition “Communications Technology Changing the World”.

9. [Oct/2024] Our paper “DIsFU: Protecting Innocent Clients in Federated Unlearning” has been awarded the Best Paper Award in International Conference on Algorithms and Architectures for Parallel Processing (ICA3PP).

10. [Sept/2024] I am honored to join as an Associate Editor for the Wireless Networks and Mobile Services track of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (TVT) and am excited to contribute to our community in this capacity.

11. [Aug/2024] I have accepted a Letter of Appointment from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE). I look forward to contributing to cutting-edge research and collaborating with distinguished colleagues and talented students!

12. [July/2024] I am honored to receive the NTU Graduate College’s Research Excellence Award.

13. [Jun/2024] Our paper, “Mixture of Experts for Intelligent Networks: A Large Language Model-enabled Approach”, was selected for the Best Paper Award in International Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC), Ayia Napa, Cyprus, 27–31 May 2024.

Highlighted NICE Lab Work

Network Large AI Model:

1. Shiyuan Zhang, Tong Li∗, Zhu Xiao, Hongyang Du (corresponding author), Kaibin Huang “LSDM: LLM-Enhanced Spatio-temporal Diffusion Model for Service-Level Mobile Traffic Prediction”, 2025. We propose an LLM-Enhanced Spatio-temporal Diffusion Model (LSDM) to achieve SOTA service-level mobile traffic prediction for individual users.

Network-aided LLM Inference:

1. Feiran You, Hongyang Du (corresponding author), Kaibin Huang, and Abbas Jamalipour. “Network-aided Efficient Large Language Model Services With Denoising-inspired Prompt Compression.”, 2024. We propose Joint Power and Prompt Optimization (JPPO), a framework that combines Small Language Model (SLM)-based prompt compression with wireless power allocation optimization for efficient LLM services.

Selected First-author Papers

For all publications, please refer to my google scholar.

1. Hongyang Du, Ruichen Zhang, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, Zehui Xiong, Shuguang Cui, Xuemin Shen, Dong In Kim. “User-Centric Interactive AI for Distributed Diffusion Model-based AI-Generated Content.”, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (IF: 23.6), Major Revision, 2024. With a distributed generative diffusion model-based AIGC framework, we propose an Interactive AI (IAI) approach, i.e., Reinforcement Learning With Large Language Models Interaction (RLLI), which utilizes LLM-empowered generative agents to replicate users interaction, providing real-time and subjective QoE feedback that reflects a spectrum of user personalities.
2. Hongyang Du, Jiacheng Wang, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, Zehui Xiong, and Dong In Kim, “AI-Generated Incentive Mechanism and Full-Duplex Semantic Communications for Information Sharing,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (Q1, CCF A), Accepted, 2023. We analyze the performance of full-duplex D2D communications. To facilitate semantic information sharing among users, we design a contract theoretic AI-generated incentive mechanism that generates the optimal contract design, outperforming two DRL algorithms. Code.
   • Selected by IEEE JSAC Popular Documents - October 2023
3. Hongyang Du, Jiacheng Wang, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, Zehui Xiong, Junshan Zhang, and Xuemin (Sherman) Shen, “Semantic Communications for Wireless Sensing: RIS-aided Encoding and Self-supervised Decoding,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (Q1, CCF A), Accepted, 2023. We propose the inverse semantic communications as a new paradigm. Using the sensing data collected from real-world, we show that our framework can reduce the data volume by 95% compared to that before encoding, without affecting the accomplishment of sensing tasks. Code.
   • Selected by IEEE JSAC Popular Documents - August 2023
4. Hongyang Du, Jiazhen Liu, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, Zehui Xiong, Junshan Zhang, and Dong In Kim, “Attention-aware Resource Allocation and QoE Analysis for Metaverse xURLLC Services,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (Q1, CCF A), Accepted, 2023. We propose a novel metric named Meta-Immersion that incorporates both the objective KPIs and subjective feelings of Metaverse users. We develop an attention-aware rendering capacity allocation scheme to improve QoE in xURLLC. Code.
   • Selected by IEEE JSAC Popular Documents - July 2023
   • First Price of Outstanding Papers of Computer Academy of Guangdong (China)
5. Hongyang Du, Dusit Niyato, Yuanai Xie, Yanyu Cheng, Jiawen Kang, and Dong In Kim, “Performance Analysis and Optimization for Jammer-Aided Multi-Antenna UAV Covert Communication,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (Q1, CCF A), vol. 40, pp. 2962-2979, Oct, 2022. The first study that analyzes a jammer-aided UAV covert communication system over composite fading and shadowing with accurate and tractable generalized channel models.
6. Hongyang Du, Ruichen Zhang, Yinqiu Liu, Jiacheng Wang, Yijing Lin, Zonghang Li, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, Zehui Xiong, Shuguang Cui, Bo Ai, Haibo Zhou, and Dong In Kim. “Enhancing deep reinforcement learning: A tutorial on generative diffusion models in network optimization.”, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (IF: 34.4), accepted, 2024. This paper serves as a comprehensive tutorial on applying GDMs in network optimization tasks, with a series of case studies, showing the integration of GDMs with Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), incentive mechanism design, Semantic Communications (SemCom), Internet of Vehicles (IoV) networks, etc. Code.
7. Hongyang Du, Zonghang Li, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, Zehui Xiong, Huawei Huang, and Shiwen Mao. “Diffusion-based Reinforcement Learning for Edge-enabled AI-Generated Content Services.”, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (Q1, CCF A), accepted, 2024. We propose a diffusion model-based AI-generated optimal decision (AGOD) algorithm, which can generate the optimal ASP selection decisions. Code.
8. Hongyang Du, Jiayi Zhang, Ke Guan, Dusit Niyato, Huiying Jiao, Zhiqin Wang, and Thomas Kürner, “Performance and Optimization of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Aided THz Communications,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 70, pp. 3575-3593, May, 2022 We first prove that the small-scale amplitude fading of THz signals can be accurately modeled by the fluctuating two-ray distribution based on two THz signal measurement experiments conducted in a variety of different scenarios.
9. Hongyang Du, Jiayi Zhang, Julian Cheng, and Bo Ai, “Millimeter wave communications with reconfigurable intelligent surfaces: Performance analysis and optimization,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 69, no. 4, pp. 2752–2768, Apr. 2021. We made a comprehensive comparison between the RIS-aided and AF relay systems over realistic mmWave channels.
10. Hongyang Du, Guangyuan Liu, Yijing Lin, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kanag, Zehui Xiong, and Dong In Kim, “Mixture of Experts for Intelligent Networks: A Large Language Model-enabled Approach” in Proceedings of International Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC), Ayia Napa, Cyprus, 27–31 May 2024.
    • Best paper award
11. Hongyang Du, Guangyuan Liu, Dusit Niyato, Jiayi Zhang, Jiawen Kang, Zehui Xiong, Bo Ai, and Dong In Kim, ``Generative AI-aided Joint Training-free Secure Semantic Communications via Multi-modal Prompts’’ in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, & Signal Processing (ICASSP), Seoul, South Korea, 14-19 April 2024.

Selected Collaborative Papers

For all publications, please refer to this or my google scholar.

1. Changyuan Zhao, Hongyang Du (corresponding author), Guangyuan Liu, and Dusit Niyato. “Supervised Score-Based Modeling by Gradient Boosting.”, AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2024.
2. Jiawen Kang, Hongyang Du, Zonghang Li, Zehui Xiong, Shiyao Ma, Dusit Niyato, and Yuan Li. “Personalized Saliency-Based Task-Oriented Semantic Communications: Architecture Design and Performance Analysis.” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (Q1, CCF A), 41, no. 1: 186-201, 2022. We have first presented an energy-efficient task-oriented semantic communication framework with an efficient image retrieval manner based on a triple-based scene graph.
   • First Price of Outstanding Papers of Computer Academy of Guangdong (China)
   • IEEE JSAC Popular Documents December 2023
3. Jiacheng Wang, Hongyang Du, Dusit Niyato, Zehui Xiong, Jiawen Kang, Bo Ai, Zhu Han, and Dong In Kim. “Generative Artificial Intelligence Assisted Wireless Sensing: Human Flow Detection in Practical Communication Environments.” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (Q1, CCF A), accepted, 2024.
4. Jiacheng Wang, Hongyang Du, Dusit Niyato, Mu Zhou, Jiawen Kang, Zehui Xiong, and Abbas Jamalipour. “Through the Wall Detection and Localization of Autonomous Mobile Device in Indoor Scenario.” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (Q1, CCF A), to appear, 2023. We propose a channel state information (CSI) based system for through-the-wall (TTW) passive AMD detection and localization.
5. Jiayi Zhang, Hongyang Du, Peng Zhang, Julian Cheng, and Liang Yang, “Performance Analysis of 5G Mobile Relay Systems for High-Speed Trains,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (Q1, CCF A), vol. 638, no. 12, pp. 2760-2772, Dec. 2020. We proposed a framework to analyze the mobile relay system over mixed κ-μ and FTR fading channels for High-Speed Trains communications.
6. Jiayi Zhang, Hongyang Du, Qiang Sun, Bo Ai, and Derrick Wing Kwan Ng. “Physical layer security enhancement with reconfigurable intelligent surface-aided networks.” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (Q1, CCF A), 16:3480-3495, 2021. We study the physical layer security of the downlink RIS-aided transmission framework for randomly located users in the presence of a multi-antenna eavesdropper.
7. Wanting Yang, Hongyang Du, Ziqin Liew, Wei Yang Bryan Lim, Zehui Xiong, Dusit Niyato, Xuefen Chi, Xuemin Sherman Shen, and Chunyan Miao. “Semantic Communications for Future Internet: Fundamentals, Applications, and Challenges”, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (Q1), Nov. 2022. A comprehensive survey of semantic communications for 6G network.
8. Minrui Xu, Hongyang Du (corresponding author), Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, Zehui Xiong, Shiwen Mao, Zhu Han et al. ``Unleashing the power of edge-cloud generative ai in mobile networks: A survey of aigc services.’’ IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 25, pp. 213-250, 2023.
9. Zhe Wang, Jiayi Zhang, Hongyang Du, Dusit Niyato, Shuguang Cui, Bo Ai, Mérouane Debbah, Khaled B. Letaief, and H. Vincent Poor. ``A tutorial on extremely large-scale MIMO for 6G: Fundamentals, signal processing, and applications.” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (Q1), 2024 A comprehensive survey of research on XL-MIMO wireless systems.
10. Jiacheng Wang, Hongyang Du, Zengshan Tian, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, and Xuemin Shen. “Acceleration Estimation of Wireless Signal Propagation Path Length Changes for Indoor Integrated Sensing and Communications.” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2024. This paper proposes DP-AcE, a CSI-based DPLC acceleration estimation algorithm..
11. Jiacheng Wang, Hongyang Du, Zengshan Tian, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, and Xuemin Shen. “Semantic-aware Sensing Information Transmission For Metaverse: A Contest Theoretic Approach.” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2023. A semantic transmission framework for transmitting sensing information from the physical world to Metaverse.
12. Jiacheng Wang, Hongyang Du, Zengshan Tian, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, and Xuemin Shen. “A Unified Framework for Guiding Generative AI with Wireless Perception in Resource Constrained Mobile Edge Networks.” IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (Q1, CCF A), 2023. A novel framework that utilizes wireless perception to guide GAI (WiPe-GAI) for providing digital content generation service.
13. Ismail Lotfi, Hongyang Du, Dusit Niyato, Sumei Sun, and Dong In Kim. “On the Robustness of Channel Allocation in Joint Radar and Communication Systems: An Auction Approach.” IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (Q1, CCF A), 2023. A covert JRC system that minimizes the detection probability by wardens.
14. Xiaoxu Ren, Hongyang Du, Chao Qiu, Tao Luo, Zejun Liu, Xiaofei Wang, and Dusit Niyato, “Dual-Level Resource Provisioning and Heterogeneous Auction for Mobile Metaverse,” IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (Q1), 2024. This paper proposes a dual-level resources trading approach for mobile Metaverse based on blockchain.
15. Jie Zheng, Baoxia Du, Hongyang Du, Jiawen Kang, Dusit Niyato, and Haijun Zhang, “Energy-efficient Resource Allocation in Generative AI-aided Secure Semantic Mobile Networks,” IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (Q1), 2024. We explore potential adversarial attacks that could disrupt image transmission in SIoT and propose a defense mechanism utilizing Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI), specifically the Generative Diffusion Models (GDMs).
16. Yijing Liu, Gang Feng, Hongyang Du, Z. Qin, Y. Sun, J. Kang, X. Li, and D. Niyato, “Adaptive Clustering based Straggler-aware Federated Learning in Wireless Edge Networks,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, accepted, 2024
17. Yijing Lin, Zhipeng Gao, Hongyang Du, Jiawen Kang, Dusit Niyato, Qian Wang, Jingqing Ruan, and Shaohua Wan. “DRL-based Adaptive Sharding for Blockchain-based Federated Learning.” IEEE Transactions on Communications. An adaptive blockchain-enabled FL framework for ITS based on blockchain sharding.
18. Yijing Lin, Zhipeng Gao, Hongyang Du, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang, and Xiaoyuan Liu, “Incentive and Dynamic Client Selection for Federated Unlearning” in Proceedings of The Web Conference (WWW) (A-level conf), Singapore, 13-17 May 2024. We integrate deep reinforcement learning into federated unlearning to dynamically select remaining clients to join the unlearning process to mitigate the bias introduced by the unbalanced data distribution among clients.
19. Zonghang Li, Wenjiao Feng, Weibo Cai, Hongfang Yu, Long Luo, Gang Sun, Hongyang Du, Dusit Niyato, “Accelerating Geo-distributed Machine Learning with Network-Aware Adaptive Tree and Auxiliary Route,” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, early access, 2024

Awards

1. IEEE ComSoc Best Young Professional Award for Best Early Career Researcher, 2024
   • IEEE Communications Society
   • Only six person is selected globally each year; only one person for “Best Early Career Researcher” category
   
2. IEEE Daniel E. Nobel Fellowship Award, 2022
   • IEEE society-level award from IEEE Vehicular Technology Society
   • Only one person is selected globally each year
   
3. IEEE Signal Processing Society Scholarship, 2023
   • IEEE society-level award from IEEE Signal Processing Society
   
4. Singapore Data Science Consortium (SDSC) Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2023
   • Only ten students are selected in Singapore each year
   
5. Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad, 2022
   • National-level award from China
   • Prestigious Award presented to 650 Ph.D. students worldwide each year
6. NTU Graduate College’s Research Excellence Award, 2024
   • Only one student is selected each year.
   
7. Best Paper Award of IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society
   
8. Best Paper Award in the IWCMC 2024 Conference Ayia Napa, Cyprus, May 27th – 31st 2024
   
9. First Prize in the 2024 ComSoc Social Network Technical Committee (SNTC) Student Competition
   • Project leader of ``Enhancing Metaverse Social Networking via User-Centric AI-Driven Eyewear''
   
10. Second Prize in the 2024 ComSoc Social Network Technical Committee (SNTC) Student Competition
11. Honorary Mention in the 2023 ComSoc Student Competition ``Communications Technology Changing the World.’’, 2023
    • IEEE society-level award from IEEE Communications Society
    
12. Honorary Mention in the 2024 ComSoc Student Competition ``Communications Technology Changing the World.’’, 2024
    • IEEE society-level award from IEEE Communications Society, Team Advisor
    
13. Exemplary Reviewer of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, 2021
    
14. Exemplary Reviewer of the IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, 2021
    
15. Research Scholarship, NTU, 2021-2025
16. National Scholarship, Ministry of Education of China, 2020
    • National-level award from China
17. National Scholarship, Ministry of Education of China, 2018
    • National-level award from China

Academic Services

1. Associate Editor, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (Impact Factor: 34.4) (2025-)
2. Associate Editor, IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society (Impact Factor: 6.3) (2025-)
3. Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Communications (Impact Factor: 7.7) (2024-)
4. Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (Impact Factor: 6.8) (2024-)
5. Guest Editor, IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, “Integrating Generative AI into Future Internet of Vehicles (IoV)”, 2024
6. Assistant to the Editor-in Chief, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (2022-2024)
7. Workshop Co-chair, “Empowering Wireless Communications and Networking with Generative AI” in IEEE ICCC 2024
8. Contributor, “IEEE ComSoc Best Readings in Generative AI and Large Language Models for Networking”
9. TPC Member: IEEE Globecom 2024 Workshop - IMMLLM6G; IEEE VTC2024-Fall Washington DC: Machine Learning for Communications; IEEE VTC2024-Fall Washington DC: Electric Vehicles, Vehicular Electronics and Intelligent Transportation; IEEE Globecom 2024-SAC BD; IEEE Globecom 2024-SAC ISC; IEEE ICC 2024-CRAIN Symposium (Cognitive Radio and AI-Enabled Networks); IEEE WCNC 2024-Track 3-Machine Learning and Optimization for Wireless Systems; IEEE WCNC 2024-Track 4-Emerging Technologies, Standards, and Applications; IEEE WCNC 2024-Workshop on The Impact of Large Language Models on 6G Networks; IEEE VTC2023-Fall: Hong Kong, Machine Learning and AI for Communications; IEEE VTC2023-Fall: Hong Kong-Electric Vehicles, Vehicular Electronics and Intelligent Transportation; IEEE VTC2023-Fall: Hong Kong-Recent Results and Workshops; IEEE WCNC 2023-Track 3-Machine Learning and Optimization for Wireless Systems; IEEE WCNC 2022-Track 2-Networking and MAC
10. Reviewer: IEEE COMST, JSAC, TMC, TWC, TIFS, TCOM, TVT, WCM, IoTJ, Network, WCL, CL, ICLR, and more.

Teaching

1. ELEC3846 Numerical methods and optimization, Spring 2025
2. SC1005 Digital Logic, Fall 2023
3. SC2103 Digital Systems Design, Spring 2023
4. CE3006 Digital Communications, Fall 2022

“Life brings many sorrows. Looking back when unhappy won’t bring joy.
Dreams, however beautiful, are just dreams. Cherish the present, for it’s real. Don’t waste time in lonely reflection, toast to those who share your path today.”

“生活中有很多的不如意，如果一不开心，就寄希望于当初，那你永远不会开心。
幻境再美终是梦，珍惜眼前始为真，莫使金樽空对月，举杯幸会有缘人。”

———《武林外传》