Zhang Guangjun: Seize the Historical Opportunity of Artificial Intelligence Development to Construct a New Pattern for Higher Education Development
General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that "artificial intelligence is a vital driving force leading the new round of scientific and technological revolution as well as industrial transformation; it is profoundly changing the way people produce, live, and learn, and is propelling human society into a smart era of human-machine coordination, cross-border integration, and co-creation and sharing." Currently, global AI technology is iterating at an accelerated pace, having become the driving engine for leapfrog development in science and technology, industrial optimization and upgrading, and the overall leap in productive forces. As the convergence point of education, technology, and talent, universities must firmly grasp the historical opportunity of AI development. They must integrate into the changes of the era with a higher political standing and more systematic strategic planning, accelerating the construction of a new pattern for higher education development, and supporting and leading Chinese-path modernization through the development of a powerful country in education.
I. Strengthening Strategic Awareness and Grasping the Direction of Higher Education Transformation in the AI Era
The Outline of the National Plan for the Development of a Powerful Country in Education (2024–2035) explicitly proposes to "promote artificial intelligence to facilitate educational reform." As the primary front for talent cultivation, the source of scientific and technological innovation, and the gathering place for high-level talent, higher education is undergoing profound transformations driven by AI. This transformation is by no means a simple superposition of AI technology onto the educational field, but rather a profound reshaping of the educational paradigm.
AI leads the innovation of the educational system. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "China attaches great importance to the profound impact of AI on education, actively promoting the deep integration of AI and education to facilitate educational reform and innovation." Currently, AI technology is changing the laws of knowledge production and driving innovations in the focus of educational goals, practical paths, and the structure of educational fields. First, the focus of educational goals has shifted more prominently toward capacity building. The deep application of AI has changed the ways humans acquire, create, and apply knowledge, leading to a continuous reduction in the marginal cost of knowledge acquisition. The focus of human educational goals should shift from imparting knowledge to cultivating high-order thinking, comprehensive innovation capabilities, and lifelong learning skills, placing greater emphasis on awakening the soul, enlightening wisdom, and perfecting personality. Second, educational practical paths emphasize precise adaptation. Through multi-modal data collection and deep learning algorithms, smart education systems can accurately analyze learners' cognitive characteristics, learning preferences, and growth trajectories. They provide all-around assistance in learning, teaching, research, management, and evaluation, achieving a fusion of "individualized, high-quality, and large-scale" education. Third, the structure of the educational field focuses more on the integration of the virtual and the real. AI breaks the temporal and spatial constraints of education, extending its depth and breadth, and pushing the educational field toward an ubiquitous space where the virtual and real converge. This forms a new educational spatial morphology characterized by immersion in physical space and the continuous extension of virtual space.
AI drives the transformation of scientific research paradigms. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "new technologies such as AI are in the ascendant, significantly enhancing humanity's ability to understand and transform the world." AI possesses large-scale data processing capabilities and demonstrates advantages in modeling complex systems, bringing new methods and tools to scientific research. AI-driven scientific research (AI for Science) has the potential to become a new paradigm of scientific research following empirical science, theoretical science, computational science, and data science. First, scientific innovation efficiency is shifting from a bottleneck of efficiency to intelligent acceleration. Traditional research activities, constrained by resource conditions and long experimental cycles, easily fall into efficiency bottlenecks; AI can improve the efficiency of experimental data processing, solve complex deductive calculation problems, and accelerate scientific discovery and technological intervention. For example, AI has already shown broad application prospects in drug development, genetic research, biological breeding, and new material research. Second, the organizational form of scientific research is evolving from disciplinary fragmentation to cross-disciplinary integration. The traditional research system is built on the basis of disciplinary differentiation, with boundaries and barriers existing between disciplines. Currently, scientific problems are highly complex, research activities are large-scale, and they span many disciplines. AI breaks traditional disciplinary boundaries and promotes cross-domain integration, bringing unprecedented opportunities for the integration and reshaping of the disciplinary system. The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton to recognize their "foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks." In the same year, half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of the AI company DeepMind for their contributions to protein structure prediction. The fact that two of the three Nobel science prizes were related to AI profoundly reflects that the cross-disciplinary integration of disciplines will become the norm. Third, the positioning of the research subject is shifting from using tools to human-machine collaboration. After AI learns and masters the knowledge created by humans, the machine is no more just a technical tool but a collaborator in the research process. Researchers can integrate human experience into computational models, giving full play to the machine’s computational advantages and human intuitive advantages, building human-machine collaborative mechanisms, and achieving a fusion of human decision-making with AI analysis.
AI changes the landscape of talent competition. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "talent resources are an important strength and a significant advantage for our country in intense international competition." Innovation-driven development is, in essence, talent-driven, and the competition in comprehensive national strength is, in the final analysis, a competition for talent. First, the rapid development of AI has intensified the scramble for AI talent among nations. As the core driving force of the new round of scientific and technological revolution, competition in the field of AI has extended from technological breakthroughs to the contest for talent, which has both birthed a new trend in global talent flow and pushed countries to accelerate the strategic transformation of their talent policies. Major countries and regions worldwide are racing to release AI development strategies, generally identifying talent cultivation and reserves as strategic priorities. The transnational flow of talent exhibits "high-end, precision, and sophisticated" characteristics, with scientists who master core algorithms and engineers with cross-border integration capabilities becoming the focus of contention. Second, the rapid industrial application of AI is changing the talent demand structure of society. As a foundational and driving technical force, AI is deeply integrating with various industries and fields such as manufacturing, education, healthcare, agriculture, and finance, birthing new products, business forms, and models [1]. This profoundly changes people's production and lifestyles and reconstructs the social demand for talent and job layouts. According to the Future of Jobs Report 2025 released by the World Economic Forum, by 2030, AI and data processing technology will create 11 million jobs while also replacing 9 million jobs; calculated by percentage, the three fastest-growing occupations are big data specialists, fintech engineers, and AI and machine learning specialists. Third, the rapid iteration of AI technology is driving supply-side reform in university talent cultivation. Faced with the profound changes brought by the rapid development of AI technology, cultivating a large number of high-end AI talents with innovation capabilities and a spirit of cooperation has become an important mission for universities. World-class universities are seizing this historical opportunity to cultivate talent in the field of AI by innovating talent selection and cultivation mechanisms, promoting cross-disciplinary integration, and strengthening industry-university-research cooperation, providing key support for their respective countries to seize the initiative in global scientific and technological competition.
II. Reshaping the Mode of Education to Improve the Efficacy of Cultivating Top-Notch Innovative Talent
The report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC pointed out that we must "comprehensively improve the quality of independent talent cultivation, focus on creating top-notch innovative talent, and gather the world's best talents and put them to good use." Currently, AI is driving the reconstruction of the underlying logic of the educational system by expanding educational boundaries, transforming teaching methods, and empowering school management. Faced with the profound impact of AI on education, universities should accurately identify changes, respond scientifically, and take the initiative to seek change. They should actively promote the deep integration of higher education and AI, innovating educational philosophies, reshaping teacher roles, and transforming student evaluations to continuously improve the efficacy of cultivating top-notch innovative talent.
Promoting the innovation of educational philosophy. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that we should "give full play to the advantages of AI and accelerate the development of education that accompanies everyone throughout their lives, education that is equal for everyone, education that suits everyone, and education that is more open and flexible." In the process of the rapid development of information technology, the ubiquity of knowledge acquisition channels and the digitalization of knowledge production methods have become the norm. How to seize the opportunity of AI development to stimulate students' creativity through personalized education and cultivate more top-notch innovative talents who meet national strategic needs and social development requirements has become a practical problem that universities need to solve urgently. AI technology, based on recommendation engines for learning behavior analysis, can construct "one thousand people, one thousand faces" [2] knowledge graphs, effectively identifying students' cognitive blind spots and tailoring exclusive learning content and plans for each student. During the 2025 Spring Festival, the domestic large model DeepSeek took the world by storm with its advantages of low cost and high performance. A large number of domestic universities have successively explored the practical application of DeepSeek, and some schools have already integrated this large model into their independently developed platforms. It can be said that AI is further promoting the updates of higher education philosophies and empowering the cultivation of top-notch innovative talent. This transformation is not only an upgrade of technical tools but also a reconstruction of educational philosophy; it is an inevitable result of the development of digital technology and an inevitable trend for the future development of education.
Empowering the transformation of the teacher's role. The Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Teacher Force Construction in the New Era issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council clearly proposed that "teachers should actively adapt to new technological changes such as informatization and AI, and actively and effectively carry out education and teaching." The deep integration of AI with education and teaching is continuously releasing its innovative power in the professional development and self-identity construction of teachers. On one hand, the ways for students to acquire knowledge are more open and convenient; "everyone can learn, everywhere can be a place to learn, and learning can happen at any time" has become possible. On the other hand, AI systems can take over tasks such as grading homework, tracking learning conditions, and even analyzing the correlation of knowledge points, planning course content, and designing teaching activities, helping teachers save time and energy while enhancing educational efficacy. In this context, teachers are continuously enhancing their AI literacy and digital teaching capabilities, promoting personalized education centered on adaptive learning systems, and becoming designers of student learning and technology-empowered educators. At the same time, they focus on providing ideological guidance and deep inspiration for students' thinking abilities. While imparting knowledge, they focus on cultivating students' dialectical thinking, innovation capabilities, and emotional literacy.
Driving the transformation of student evaluation. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "to see how a student is cultivated, one must see what kind of ruler is used to measure and what kind of eye is used to discover. Education is not about producing 'losers,' and the practice of labeling students with scores must be thoroughly changed." Educational evaluation is the "conductor's baton" of the political ecosystem of education and a concrete expression of educational values. Evaluation systems driven by AI can achieve multi-dimensional capability diagnosis through full-process learning data tracking. This focuses not only on the degree of knowledge mastery but also evaluates core literacy and high-order thinking abilities. It can also provide a scientific basis for personalized guidance by predicting learning trends and identifying knowledge blind spots, achieving the intrinsic unity of knowledge mastery and capability development. In the AI era, the evaluation of students should break through the shackles of "viewing scores as the only criterion" [3]. It should fully utilize information technology to improve outcome evaluation, strengthen process evaluation, explore value-added evaluation, and soundly improve comprehensive evaluation. This will build a "trinity" evaluation system of knowledge mastery, capability development, and value shaping, promoting the all-round development of students in moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor education [4], and striving to create a large number of top-notch innovative talents.
III. Exerting the "Leading Goose" Effect to Promote Disciplinary Cross-integration and the Integration of Production and Education
Currently, the scientific and technological revolution and the maneuvers between major powers are intertwined. High-tech fields have become the forefront and main battlefield of international competition, profoundly reshaping the global order and development landscape. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "AI is a strategic technology leading this round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, possessing a strong 'leading goose' effect with spillover driving power." As the main force of basic research and the source of major technological breakthroughs, universities are an important part of the national strategic scientific and technological strength and the national innovation system. They should profoundly grasp the general trend of global scientific and technological development and take the accelerated development of a new generation of AI as an important strategic lever. They should promote the reconstruction of the disciplinary system with systematic thinking and, guided by the deep integration of the innovation chain and the industrial chain, drive the leapfrog development of China's science and technology, providing solid support for achieving high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology.
Consolidate the foundation for autonomous innovation in artificial intelligence. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that we must "focus on enhancing original innovation capacity, target key core technologies as the main direction of attack, and solidify the foundation for the development of a new generation of artificial intelligence." Artificial intelligence is both the engine of a technological revolution and a high ground for national strategic competition. Universities should take a long-term perspective, strengthening basic research and strategically deploying efforts to tackle frontiers in AI by focusing on the three core elements of data, algorithms, and computing power. We must strengthen top-level design, integrating AI into the core domains of discipline construction and building a full-link disciplinary layout spanning "basic research—technical bottlenecks—industrial application." With the first-level discipline of Intelligence Science and Technology as the core, we must integrate resources from foundational disciplines such as computer science, mathematics, and cognitive science to form a "hardcore" disciplinary cluster that supports original innovation in intelligent technology. Focusing on frontier fields and grasping global trends in AI development, we must identify breakthroughs and primary directions of attack, proactively planning cross-disciplinary basic theoretical research in advanced machine learning, brain-inspired intelligent computing, and quantum intelligent computing. We must strengthen the assault on key core technologies, seize the commanding heights of AI scientific and technological innovation, and continuously enhance international influence.
Activate the momentum for collaborative development through interdisciplinary cross-fertilization. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that we must "make good use of the 'catalyst' [5] of interdisciplinary integration, strengthen the cultivation capacity of foundational disciplines, and break down the barriers between disciplines and majors." As a field of study, AI is characterized not only by multidisciplinary synthesis and high complexity but also by its ability to deeply integrate with and permeate all disciplines. Universities should use "AI+" as a leverage point to promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional disciplines toward digitalization and intelligence. In the fields of science and engineering, we can accelerate the cross-penetration of foundational disciplines—such as physics, chemistry, and biology—with AI to develop emerging directions like intelligent materials and synthetic biology. In the humanities and social sciences, we can explore innovative directions like digital humanities and intelligent social governance, using technologies such as big data analysis and machine learning algorithms to restructure research paradigms. Meanwhile, we must attach importance to the cultivation of the humanistic spirit, adhering to the unity of instrumental rationality and value rationality, and avoiding the trap of "technology-extremism" (jìshù zhìshàng [6]). For example, legal education should reinforce research on algorithmic fairness, and medical education should focus on the balance between AI-assisted diagnosis and humanistic care.
Refine the two-way driving mechanism for the integration of industry and education. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized the need to "actively cultivate innovative AI products and services, promote the industrialization of AI technology, and create a positive development situation where scientific innovation and industrial application promote each other." The strong application-oriented nature of AI requires universities to step out of the "ivory tower" and actively integrate into enterprise-led industry-university-research innovation consortia, promoting the integrated development of scientific and industrial innovation in the field of AI. We must innovate university-enterprise collaboration mechanisms and actively promote the "Four-Chain Integration" of the education chain, talent chain, innovation chain, and industrial chain. We should proactively align with national innovation platforms for the integration of industry and education, building physical platforms such as joint laboratories and industrial research institutes with leading AI enterprises to tackle key core technologies in scenarios like intelligent manufacturing, intelligent healthcare, and smart cities. We must strengthen the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, mapping out innovation chains centered around the AI industrial chain to promote high-level technology transfer. By refining the intellectual property sharing system, establishing funds for the transformation of scientific achievements, and building a professional team of technology managers, we can construct a collaborative innovation community where "basic research happens in universities, pilot-scale incubation happens on platforms, and large-scale application happens in enterprises," thereby accelerating the speed and efficiency of AI scientific result transformation.
IV. Uphold the Fundamentals and Break New Ground to Elevate the Modernization of University Governance
During the Two Sessions [7] this year, while visiting members of the China Democratic League, the China Association for Promoting Democracy, and the education sector participating in the third session of the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "On the one hand, with the Internet of Intelligence and AI, the tools and methods of education will change, and the cultivation of student abilities will change; these require reforms that advance with the times. On the other hand, we must not relax in the inspiration of students' wisdom, the cultivation of their souls, and the development of their basic cognitive and problem-solving abilities." This important discourse profoundly reveals what remains constant and what changes in education during the AI era, providing the fundamental guidance for AI to empower the development of higher education. The application of AI technology promotes the restructuring of educational forms while simultaneously bringing dual challenges at the levels of values and ethics. Higher education must adhere to the dialectical unity of upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground, ensuring that the Party's leadership sets the direction, ideological and political education molds the soul, and digital intelligence empowers quality and efficiency, thereby continuously elevating the modernization of university governance.
Adhere to the Party's leadership and hold firm the direction of schooling in the AI era. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Strengthening the Party's leadership over universities and improving Party building in universities is the fundamental guarantee for running universities with Chinese characteristics well." In the face of risks such as ideological infiltration, algorithmic bias, technological abuse, and information leaks that the rapid development of AI may bring, university Party committees must profoundly grasp the decisive significance of the Two Establishments, strengthen the Four Consciousnesses, be firm in the Four Confidences, and achieve the Two Upholds. We must solidly carry out Party building work in universities to provide a strong guarantee for building a leading country in education. We must improve the institutional system for the Party's comprehensive leadership over educational work, persisting in educating people for the Party and cultivating talents for the country. We should use big data technology to monitor the "digital vital signs" of key areas such as discipline construction, talent cultivation, and scientific research breakthroughs, translating the Party's educational policies into quantifiable and traceable governance actions to ensure that the direction of schooling does not deviate and the original aspiration of education does not shift. We must strive to provide education that satisfies the people, using AI technology to optimize the allocation of educational resources, breaking geographical and inter-school barriers so that high-quality educational resources reach a wider population, contributing to the substantive enhancement of educational equity.
Prioritize ideological and political education to mold the soul, and deeply plant the value foundation of "fostering virtue through education" (lìdé shùrén [8]). General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized: "We must persist in taking 'fostering virtue through education' as the central link, and integrate ideological and political work throughout the entire process of education and teaching." Facing challenges of value alienation—such as the "information cocoon" effect of algorithmic recommendations, hidden academic misconduct in AI-assisted writing, and the crisis of emotional alienation in human-computer interaction—universities must permeate the entire process and all aspects of AI-empowered higher education with ideological and political education. We must build an educational system that deeply integrates technological governance with value shaping. We must persist in a people-centered approach, always taking the cultivation of socialist builders and successors with all-round development in morality, intelligence, physical fitness, beauty, and labor as the logical starting point. We must respect the subject status of the "human" in the AI era, adhere to a student-centered educational philosophy, strengthen ideological guidance, and cultivate "new people of the era" (shídài xīnrén [9]) who have ideals, ability, and a sense of responsibility. We must persist in "intelligence for good," using digital intelligence to empower ideological and political education, accurately analyzing students' ideological trends and behavioral characteristics, integrating Socialist Core Values into algorithmic recommendations, and using AI technology to continuously innovate the content, form, and medium of ideological and political education, helping to improve the precision and effectiveness of education.
(The author is the Party Secretary of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering) Source: Qiushi Reports (Hóngqí Wéngǎo), 2025, No. 7 Web Editor: Ma Jingren