Amidst the AI boom, the industry is flourishing rapidly. China's core AI industry reached a scale of 578.7 billion CNY in 2023, and the government work report of the Two Sessions in 2024 proposed the initiation of an action plan for "AI+," signaling the acceleration of AI industry towards large-scale applications.
Simultaneously, the demand for professional AI talents is unprecedented, both in terms of quality and quantity. It is estimated that by 2030, China's demand for AI talents will reach 6 million.
However, the current gap in AI talent is significant. Presently, there are only about 2 million AI talents from domestic and foreign universities and existing top talent reserves. A large number of high-quality AI talents are not only from high-tech enterprises but also need to emerge from education in various major universities.
Intel, which has been actively involved in education and industry-education integration since the 1990s, has responded to industry and social trends by setting a benchmark for a new type of AI education through enterprise-school integration, industry-education integration, and the integration of industry, academia, and research.
In a groundbreaking collaboration with Wuhan Engineering University, Beijing Unionweishi Technology Co., Ltd., and People's Posts and Telecommunications Press, Intel has pioneered the establishment of the "Intel Digital Capability Cultivation Demonstration Center," bringing together academia, partners, and industry publishers. This initiative aims to foster the development of AI industry application-oriented talents by integrating elements such as training centers, teaching materials, cutting-edge technologies, and ecosystem solutions.
On one front, Intel, together with Wuhan Engineering University and Unionweishi, has successfully implemented a comprehensive solution for cultivating AI application-oriented talents.
On the other front, Intel, in partnership with People's Posts and Telecommunications Press, will launch a new form of high-quality teaching materials that integrate AI theory with practical applications in October this year.
By employing a multi-pronged approach, this collaboration further promotes the integration of industry and academia, empowers AI education throughout the entire process, and accelerates the virtuous cycle of practical AI applications and talent development, allowing talents to learn from industry, apply in industry, and contribute to industry development.
Vice President Yu Faquan of Wuhan Engineering University stated, "Industry-education integration and empowering the new engineering disciplines respond to the era of AI+ industry empowerment and upgrading. We hope to introduce a more diverse combination of AI solutions and a robust ecosystem to accelerate the deep integration of education and technology, fostering more engineering and technological talents with innovation and adaptability to future changes."
↑↑↑ In the photo, leaders from various sectors gather for a group photo. From left to right: Shui Mengling, Deputy Chief Editor of the Higher Education Science and Technology Branch of the People's Posts and Telecommunications Press Education Publishing Center; Ma Xiaolong, Member of the Party Committee, Vice President, and Minister of the Organization Department of Wuhan University of Engineering; Yu Faquan, Member of the Party Committee, Vice President of Wuhan University of Engineering; Xia Lei, Chief Architect of Artificial Intelligence at Intel China; Liu Tingrui, Chairman of Beijing Unite Great World Technology Co., Ltd.
Wuhan University of Engineering is a distinctive multidisciplinary teaching and research-oriented university in Hubei Province, with a history dating back to the establishment of Hubei Petrochemical Institute in 1972, which was renamed Wuhan University of Engineering in 2006. The university boasts 9 major disciplines, 73 undergraduate majors, 23 first-level master's degree programs, and 2 first-level doctoral degree programs.
The university recruits undergraduate students from all 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government of China. It currently has 26,000 full-time students, including 6,000 postgraduates, and employs over 1,300 full-time faculty members. Among them are more than 30 high-level talents such as academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, National Distinguished Youth Scholars, etc. Additionally, the university hosts 76 provincial and ministerial-level platforms including National Engineering Technology Research Centers, National Technology Transfer Demonstration Institutions, and Key Laboratories of the Ministry of Education.
As early as 2006, Wuhan University of Engineering established the major of Intelligent Science and Technology, and was selected for the national first-class professional construction plan.
In 2019, Wuhan University of Engineering officially established the independent AI College, promoting the pilot reform of "AI + Major" to develop a new model of integration of industry and education based on disciplinary advantages.
In recent years, students from Wuhan University of Engineering, especially those from the School of Computer Science and Engineering, have won more than 100 awards in influential national and international competitions such as the "Challenge Cup," "Internet + Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition," Huawei ICT Competition, and the National College Student Robot Contest.
In particular, in May 2002, the robot soccer team from Wuhan University of Engineering (then known as Wuhan Institute of Chemical Technology) won the championship for the first time at the 7th RoboCup World Robot Soccer Championship.
Several small robots, after various studies, still remain in the university's historical exhibition hall to this day.
In the process of cultivating AI application-oriented talents, schools can collaborate with enterprises to establish training centers, enhancing the integration of production, education, and research. This facilitates the seamless connection between scientific research innovation, technology transfer, and industrial innovation.
Moreover, it's crucial for enterprises to closely engage with academic institutions, deepening the collaboration between academia and industry. By providing intelligent scenario cases and solutions, they can enrich students' practical experience.
With a shared vision for talent development, Intel, Wuhan Engineering University, and various partners have collaborated to establish the Wuhan Engineering University AI Innovation Laboratory. Following an integrated "edge-cloud" solution, this laboratory leverages hardware terminals provided by Intel, gathering the core elements of AI development such as computing power, algorithms, data, and scenarios. Additionally, it emphasizes the application of Generative AI (AIGC), offering students a more practical and scenario-based learning platform.
Joint Wisdom, as a pioneer in AI education, is committed to providing solutions for cultivating AI application-oriented talents, including teaching and research platforms, practical training courses, training equipment, and development kits. These solutions comprise the "Curriculum," "Training," "Competition," and "Certification," forming the four-part AI teaching series, accelerating the development of AI application-oriented talents to the frontline.
Additionally, Joint Wisdom collaborates closely with Intel in the field of AI education, having obtained authorization for the Intel Global Youth Digital Capability Cultivation and Future Builders' Digital Capability Cultivation projects, and making efficient progress in the OpenVINO AI application technology skills certification.
Currently, Joint Wisdom's AI application-oriented talent cultivation program has been implemented in nearly a hundred schools. Moreover, its AI trainer training and certification have been recognized, licensed, and guided by relevant departments in Beijing's Haidian District.
Quality teaching also relies on meticulously crafted teaching materials.
In October of this year, the new form of teaching materials, integrating AI theory with practical applications, jointly created by People's Posts and Telecommunications Press and Intel, will be officially published.
This series consists of seven volumes covering cutting-edge AI technologies such as artificial intelligence, neural network learning, machine learning, natural language, etc. It gathers the wisdom of high-level experts from six top universities in China, including the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, East China Normal University, Lanzhou University, and others, deeply integrating theoretical essence with practical applications, making teaching more practical and instructive.
Since 2019, Intel has been shifting its focus in education towards fostering "collaborative industry-academic cultivation of digital talents".
Intel's Digital Readiness program, aimed at nurturing digital capabilities, has been implemented to varying degrees in 29 countries and regions globally, accompanied by a comprehensive curriculum and complementary practical cases validated across the world.
Under the guidance of the Ministry of Education, Intel has been conducting international AI talent development programs for seven consecutive years, establishing talent development bases in major universities.
In terms of cultivating AI application-oriented talents, Intel not only offers a complete set of educational solutions but also provides tailored curriculum development, faculty training, student competitions, and international exchanges throughout the entire talent development process.
Behind all these initiatives lies Intel's continuous innovation in hardware and software.
On the hardware front, the latest Core Ultra processors integrate NPU neural network processing units, alongside CPUs and GPUs, to accelerate the AI computing power required for educational applications.
The Xeon W series desktop and workstation processors, with their multi-core, high-frequency, and powerful computing advantages, provide more efficient deep learning acceleration for AI training and inference, supporting workload demands in machine learning, data analysis, deep learning, and other AI tasks.
Xeon W workstations are also equipped with the AI Learning platform, offering various AI development virtual environments and framework tools, along with pre-installed sets of AI-related courses like "Applications and Practices of AIGC," thus realizing a complete learning ecosystem from basics to practical applications.
On the software side, Intel provides the OpenVINO toolkit for AI education, enabling open visual inference and neural network optimization, fully leveraging Intel's inference engine to optimize deep learning. It allows deploying models once and running them across a wide range of devices and AI applications.
Education drives industry, and industry propels a nation forward.
With the concerted efforts of policy support and collaboration between enterprises and educational institutions, the model for nurturing AI application-oriented talents has gradually matured.
Furthermore, with the support of technology powerhouse companies like Intel, which possess both technical prowess and social responsibility, the integration of education and AI is bound to accelerate. This acceleration will inevitably lead to higher quality outcomes. As application-oriented talents continue to be cultivated and deployed, the integration of the AI industry and its applications will undoubtedly surge forward with increasing momentum.
