SMERT Academy · For international students
Come to Hong Kong. Build real cobots. Side-by-side with us.
The HK Immersion Residency is 4 weeks of full immersion — 8 hours a day in our Tsim Sha Tsui R&D lab, working on live SMERT deployments with our engineers. Not a classroom. Not a webinar. Real hardware, real customers, real commissioning.
Private industry training — not a registered school or accredited degree. We provide a training-sponsor letter for your visa application, not a visa guarantee. Certificate of completion only; no employment, income or business outcome is guaranteed.
4 weeks
Starts 15 Oct 2026
8h / day
160 hours total
3 seats
Side-by-side with our team
Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong R&D Lab
Train on the best stack in the industry
Real technology. Real tools.
You don't learn on simulations of hardware — you learn on the same NVIDIA-powered, Huayan-built, DH Robotics-equipped cells SMERT ships to customers, driven by the same AI toolchain our engineers use daily.
NVIDIA
Edge AI Compute
Jetson Orin Nano Super — 67 TOPS of on-robot inference for vision and LLM agents
HUAYAN
Collaborative Arms & Humanoids
E15 Pro cobot arm and HY7 humanoid — the exact hardware you train on
DH ROBOTICS
Precision Grippers
Electric parallel and adaptive end-effectors for real pick-and-place work
Intel RealSense
3D Vision
D435i scene depth + D405 wrist camera — the perception stack behind every cell
Apple
Developer Workstation
MacBook Pro with the latest Apple Silicon — the on-site coding, simulator and dashboard machine for the AI-coding block and digital-twin work
NVIDIA, Apple, Intel, Huayan, DH Robotics and all other product names, brands and tools mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners. They are identified solely to describe the equipment and software used in this course. smert.ai is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of these companies.
Why "residency"
You don't attend SMERT. You join it for 4 weeks.
Residents work shoulder-to-shoulder with the SMERT team on the same benches, the same cobots and the same customer deployments we run every day — safety validation in the morning, a live vision pipeline after lunch, a demo rehearsal before dinner. You leave with a deployed cell on your CV and a SMERT Academy attendance certificate.
The 4 weeks
160 hours, day by day
Week 1Cobot Mastery & Safety — on real hardware
40h in the TST lab- Day 1: arrive, lab orientation, E-stop discipline, first power-up on the Huayan E15 Pro
- ISO 10218 collaborative operation and ISO/TS 15066 force & pressure limits — hands-on, not slides
- Safety Validation Mode: 250 mm/s cap, 10 N yield, <200 ms E-stop — you run the boot test rig yourself
- TCP calibration, tool frames and hand-eye calibration with RealSense D435i / D405
- Write a full risk-assessment sheet for a live cell — the document every customer asks for
Week 2Vision, Perception & the Edge Stack
40h in the TST lab- Jetson Orin Nano Super edge AI: deploy vision pipelines that run on the cobot, not the cloud
- Object detection and pose estimation with Ultralytics YOLO — train it on objects from our live deployments
- AR-marker tracking and 2D/3D fusion: what the E15 Pro camera does, and where our 3D module takes over
- Digital twin: build your cell in the SMERT simulator, tune the routine, then run it on hardware
- Privacy-aware vision: PDPO / GDPR basics for cameras in hospitals, hotels and restaurants
Week 3AI Agents, Voice & Natural-Language Control
40h in the TST lab- Natural-language robot control: LLM agents that turn 'bring the glass to the patient' into motion
- Voice-driven workflows with ElevenLabs — 74 languages, 10,000+ library voices and custom voice cloning, so your cobot can speak in any market (and in your own brand voice)
- Build operator dashboards and customer apps with Lovable — the tool we run our own business on
- Skills library: save routines (move, grip, place, inspect) as reusable, exportable skills
- Secure AI integration: prompt-injection awareness, least-privilege keys, secrets handling (SOC 2 mindset)
Week 4Capstone — Deploy a Real Cell with the SMERT Team
40h, shoulder-to-shoulder with our engineers- Work side-by-side with the SMERT team on a live deployment case — healthcare, hospitality or logistics
- End-to-end commissioning: mount, calibrate, program, safety-validate, document
- The commercial craft: two-invoice quoting, ROI math, and running a demo that converts
- Factory visit: Huayan & DH Robotics facilities in the Shenzhen / Dongguan corridor
- Demo day: present your deployed cell and pitch it as a product to the SMERT leadership team
Simulate it first. Then run it on real hardware.
Every routine you write starts in the SMERT digital twin — reachability, cycle time and safety envelope reviewed together with our engineers — before it ever moves a real arm. You keep simulator access after you fly home.
Hands on real SMERT cases
Your classroom is our production floor
Course projects are drawn from live deployments — the same cells our customers run today.
Special Needs Cobot
Voice-controlled assistance arm with AR-marker positioning for elderly and disability care facilities.
Bar & Service Cobot
Precision pouring and tray handling with 2D vision — deployed in live F&B environments.
Palletizing Cell
Depth-camera-guided box detection and stacking with DH Robotics adaptive grippers.
Digital Twin Lab
Full sim-to-real workflow: build, program and test routines in the twin, then run them on hardware.
Tuition
One price. Full immersion.
Full 4-week residency · 160 hours
US$25,000
Training-sponsor letter + arrival support included
Reserve with
US$5,000 deposit
- 160 hours full immersion — 8h/day, 5 days/week, 4 weeks
- Side-by-side work with the SMERT engineering team on live deployments
- Dedicated time on Huayan E15 Pro cobot & HY7 humanoid
- NVIDIA Jetson Orin edge AI + RealSense D435i/D405 3D vision lab kit
- Training-sponsorship invitation letter from smert.ai Limited for your Entry for Training visa application (not a visa guarantee)
- Arrival support: airport pickup and HK orientation
- Factory visit: Huayan & DH Robotics (Shenzhen / Dongguan corridor)
- Digital twin simulator access — keep practicing after you fly home
- SMERT Academy certificate + a deployed capstone cell on your CV
Card payments in USD via Stripe, or bank transfer invoiced by smert.ai Limited · No application form — your seat is confirmed on deposit and we email you within one business day to collect your passport and arrival details for the sponsorship letter · Deposit fully refunded if your Entry for Training visa is refused (on presentation of the refusal notice) or if we cannot take you in this cohort · Government visa fees are not included.
The deposit reserves your seat. The balance is due within 7 calendar days of the deposit payment, or before the cohort starts if that comes sooner. Terms of Enrolment & refund policy.
Important: smert.ai provides a training-sponsor invitation letter for your visa application, not a visa guarantee. We are not a law firm or immigration agency. Approval of any visa remains solely with the Hong Kong Immigration Department, and you are responsible for confirming and meeting the requirements for your passport.
Visa & Immigration — training visa, not a visitor stamp
Because the HK Immersion Residency is a structured, full-time training programme (160 hours over 4 weeks), most international participants must enter Hong Kong on an Entry for Training visa. A visitor visa or visa-free visit is not suitable — a condition of stay prohibits becoming a student at an educational institution.
smert.ai Limited acts as your training sponsor. After you are accepted and your deposit is paid, we issue a signed training-sponsorship letter and guide you through the Immigration Department application (ID(E) 993).
- Eligible for up to 12 months; your stay is limited to the 4-week programme.
- Applicants from the US, Europe and APAC — and effectively every other nationality — can apply, except nationals of Afghanistan, Cuba and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
- You need a valid passport, return ticket, proof of maintenance, and our sponsor letter.
- No employment, no salary, no work visa — this is private non-formal training.
Not included: flights, accommodation, meals, insurance and any government visa fees. We share a curated list of serviced apartments within 5–10 minutes of the lab. This information is guidance only; confirm your exact requirements with the Hong Kong Immigration Department or qualified immigration counsel.
Based in Hong Kong or prefer a part-time format? See the 12-week Robotics & AI Intensive (HK$)
Questions, answered
Your certificate of attendance
Issued by smert.ai Limited on completion of the HK Immersion Residency — a certificate of attendance, not an academic award or professional qualification.
Sample copy shown with a placeholder participant name. Your certificate carries your name, cohort dates, contact hours and a unique certificate ID.
View the sample certificate (PDF)Legal & Regulatory Notice
How the HK Immersion Residency sits within Hong Kong law
1. Education Ordinance (Cap. 279) — this is not a registered school. Under the Education Ordinance, a “school” is an institution, organisation or establishment that provides an educational course to 20 or more persons during any one day, or 8 or more persons at any one time, and such an institution must be registered with the Permanent Secretary for Education before it operates. The HK Immersion Residency is deliberately capped at 3 participants per cohort, which is below both thresholds. It is therefore private, in-house industry training delivered at our own R&D lab — not a registered school — and no Education Bureau school registration is required. The seat cap is a compliance commitment, not a marketing figure: we do not exceed it.
2. Non-local Higher and Professional Education (Regulation) Ordinance (Cap. 493) — no academic award. Cap. 493 regulates courses leading to a non-local academic award or professional qualification. This programme leads to neither. Participants who complete the programme receive a SMERT certificate of completion only. It is not a degree, diploma, academic credit, accredited qualification, professional licence or any award recognised under the Hong Kong Qualifications Framework, and it does not confer student status.
3. Immigration Ordinance (Cap. 115) — entry for training, not a visitor stamp. Conditions of stay for visitors to Hong Kong prohibit taking up study at an educational institution. Participants travelling from abroad should hold an appropriate Entry for Training visa or another valid entry arrangement that permits structured full-time training, rather than relying on a visitor stamp. SMERT.AI Limited can act as your local training sponsor and issue an invitation and sponsorship letter once your application is accepted and your deposit is paid. All entry decisions rest solely with the Hong Kong Immigration Department, and you remain responsible for confirming the requirements applicable to your own passport and circumstances. If the Immigration Department refuses your Entry for Training visa, your seat deposit is refunded in full on presentation of the refusal notice; government visa fees, travel and accommodation costs are not refundable by us.
4. Trade Descriptions Ordinance (Cap. 362) — outcomes are not guaranteed. Any reference on this page to careers, hiring, salaries, funding schemes, project results or business outcomes is illustrative and based on past or expected experience. It is not a promise, guarantee or offer of employment, income, government funding or commercial results. Eligibility for any government scheme is determined solely by the relevant Hong Kong authority.
5. Contracting entity and fees. The programme is provided by SMERT.AI Limited, a company incorporated in Hong Kong, at 14/F Foo Hoo Centre, 3 Austin Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Tuition, deposits, payment schedules, cancellation and refund handling are governed by the enrolment agreement issued on acceptance, which prevails over anything stated on this page.
This notice is a plain-language summary of our regulatory position for transparency. It is not legal advice. Last reviewed: 31 August 2026. Questions: hello@smertai.com.