PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Ivor Wai-Hung Tsang

Also known as Ivor Tsang, Ivor W. Tsang

Ivor Tsang is a machine learning researcher who directs the A*STAR Centre for Frontier AI Research in Singapore. His 2005 paper in the Journal of Machine Learning Research, written with James Kwok and Pak-Ming Cheung, introduced the Core Vector Machine for training support vector machines on very large data sets. He received an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship in 2013, worked as Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Technology Sydney, and became an IEEE Fellow in 2022 for contributions to large-scale machine learning and transfer learning. Since 2024, he leads Singapore's national initiative on Trustworthy Foundation Models, and since April 2026 he is Associate Editor-in-Chief for the Machine Learning Track of IEEE TPAMI.

Timeline

  1. 2005

    The Core Vector Machine

    In 2005, he publishes the Core Vector Machine in the Journal of Machine Learning Research with James T. Kwok and Pak-Ming Cheung. The algorithm casts many kernel methods as minimum enclosing ball problems, runs in time linear in the training set size, and trains on the KDDCUP-99 intrusion detection data, about five million patterns, in 1.4 seconds.

  2. 2010

    Best student paper at CVPR

    His research on transfer learning receives the Best Student Paper Award at CVPR 2010.

  3. 2013

    An ARC Future Fellowship

    The Australian Research Council awards him a Future Fellowship in 2013 for his research in big data analytics and large-scale machine learning.

  4. 2018

    Co-teaching for noisy labels

    In 2018, he coauthors Co-teaching with Bo Han, Quanming Yao, Masashi Sugiyama and others. The method trains two deep neural networks at once and lets each learn from the data its peer selects as likely clean, to cope with noisy labels.

  5. 2020

    Named an AI 2000 scholar

    In 2020, he is named an AI 2000 Most Influential Scholar in the AAAI/IJCAI category for his work between 2009 and 2019, ranked first in Australia in that category.

  6. Before 2022

    Professor of AI at UTS

    He is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Research Director of the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute (AAII).

  7. 2022

    CFAR director and IEEE Fellow

    He becomes Director of the A*STAR Centre for Frontier AI Research (CFAR) in January 2022. In 2022, he is also named an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to large-scale machine learning and transfer learning.

  8. Since 2024

    Trustworthy foundation models and TPAMI

    Since 2024, he leads Singapore's national initiative on Trustworthy Foundation Models under the National Multimodal Large Language Model Programme. In April 2026, as Director of A*STAR CFAR, he becomes Associate Editor-in-Chief for the Machine Learning Track of IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI).

Career

  1. Since 2022Agency for Science, Technology and ResearchDirector
  2. University of Technology SydneyProfessor of Artificial Intelligence

From the biography.

  1. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Agency for Science, Technology and Research. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Technology Sydney. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of Technology Sydney. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  4. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University of Technology Sydney. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Ivor Wai-Hung Tsang yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Core Vector Machines: Fast SVM Training on Very Large Data Sets jmlr.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Core Vector Machines: Fast SVM Training on Very Large Data Sets (HKUST) cse.hkust.edu.hk. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Prof Ivor Tsang a-star.edu.sg. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Co-teaching: Robust Training of Deep Neural Networks with Extremely Noisy Labels arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Ivor W Tsang - A*STAR Research research.a-star.edu.sg. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. IEEE Fellow a-star.edu.sg. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Professor Ivor Tsang Appointed Associate Editor-in-Chief of TPAMI a-star.edu.sg. Checked 21 October 2026.