Kao He received a degree in electronic engineering from the University of London in 1957. That same year he began working for Standard Telephones and Cables, a British subsidiary of the American telecommunications company ITT. In 1960 it was transferred to ITT’s Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in Harlow, England.
Kao He earned a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of London in 1965. In 1966, he and British engineer George Hockham proposed that fibers made of ultra-pure glass could transmit light over distances of miles without total signal loss. The first practical fiber optic cable was successfully produced in 1970, and by the end of the 20th century, much of the world’s telecommunications traveled over fiber optic cable.
In 1970, Kao left ITT for four years at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1974, he rejoined ITT as Chief Scientist for its Electro-Optical Products Division in Roanoke, Virginia. He later became ITT’s director of engineering in that division, and from 1983 to 1987 he was executive scientist and director of research at the ITT Advanced Tech Center in Shelton, Connecticut.
From 1987 to 1996 he was Vice Chancellor and President of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He then became Chairman and CEO (1996-2001) of Transtech, a Hong Kong fiber optic company, and in 2000 he became Chairman and CEO of ITX Services, a technology transfer company.
Kao was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative brain disorder, in 2004. He and his wife, Gwen Kao, founded the Charles K. Kao Foundation for Alzheimer’s Disease Limited in 2010 to promote awareness and care for people with the disease in Hong Kong.