Founded in 1989 by Professor Charles Kao, the father of optical communications, the Department of Information Engineering is the first and still the only academic department of its kind in Hong Kong. The department has world-class professors with research areas spanning electrical engineering and computer science. Out of its current 24 regular faculty members, 7 are IEEE Fellows and 2 IEE Fellows.

Throughout these 30 odd years, in addition to educating many undergraduate and postgraduate students, the department has made many significant achievements in research and societal contributions. For example, it helped Hong Kong to make its first connection to the Internet; it helped set up a large education network for schools to use; and IE professors led (co-PI and PI) the only two Area-of-Excellence projects for engineering in Hong Kong, the largest kinds of research projects funded by Hong Kong government.