On March 6, AI Front learned that Nanjing University will set up a school of Artificial Intelligence (AI) headed by Zhou Zhihua, a professor from the university. The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Xidian University set up AI schools last year, and Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications joined the group early this year. The personage inside course of study predicts, before long, the artificial intelligence institute of each big university will appear “savage growth” state. From the perspective of talent training and innovation, the establishment of artificial intelligence college is an inevitable trend. However, from the perspective of education, is it advisable to separate the major of artificial intelligence from the major of computer science in the undergraduate education stage without any difference?
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Lu Jian, president of NTU, said in an interview with the media that the college of Artificial Intelligence will recruit 60-100 undergraduate students at the beginning of this year if the process can be completed, otherwise it will be postponed to next year. It is also reported that the School of Artificial Intelligence of Nanjing University is a cooperative project of Nanjing Municipal government, which is at the same level as the School of Computer Science and software.
Notification files spread over the network
As early as May 28, 2017, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) announced the establishment of the School of Artificial Intelligence Technology, becoming the first new school in the field of ARTIFICIAL intelligence technology in China to fully carry out teaching and research work.
The School of Artificial Intelligence (AI) of Xidian University was also officially inaugurated in November last year. The school is the first entity college dedicated to the cultivation of high-end talents, research and development of innovative achievements and cultivation of high-level teams in the field of ARTIFICIAL intelligence.
In February 2018, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications also announced the establishment of an AI school and plans to start enrolling students this year.
With the establishment of artificial intelligence institutes in various universities, related topics and discussions are also going on on Weibo and Zhihu. We have briefly summarized the relevant topics of the four universities for your reference.
As the school has just been established, the only information available so far is that the dean of the school will be Zhou Zhihua, a professor of NTU.
College’s official website: http://ai.ucas.ac.cn/index.php/zh-cn/
Dean: Xu Bo, director of Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences;
Chair of the academic Committee: Tan Tieniu, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Foreign Academician of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Researcher and doctoral supervisor of the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, director of the Research Center for Intelligent Perception and Computing;
Director of the Teaching Committee: Liu Chenglin, deputy director of the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Also, since it was just established in February this year, the information is not clear. At present, it is known that IFLYtek will cooperate with the school to build platforms such as “Heavy Mail – Iflytek Artificial Intelligence Research Institute”.
College’s official website: http://sai.xidian.edu.cn/yjspy/xkjs.htm
Jiao Licheng, one of the first winners of the “Millions of Talents Project”, Shi Guangming, the distinguished professor of “Yangtze River Scholars program”, Liu Fang, an expert enjoying special allowance of The State Council, Liu Jing, one of the winners of “New Century Talents Support Program” of the Ministry of Education, Wang Shuang, Dong Weisheng, one of the winners of “Ten Thousand Talents Program” of the Organization Department of the CENTRAL Committee of the CPC, New century talents Xie Xuemei, Chen Weisheng, Hou Biao, Yang Shuyuan, Wang Shuang, Deng Cheng, Li Yangyang, Zhang Xiangrong, etc.
Zhou Zhihua has been engaged in artificial intelligence research for more than 20 years. He is an influential scientist in the international academic arena of artificial intelligence and a “genius” in the field of machine learning. It is also the first Chinese to be elected as the first member of the “Grand Slam” of five major international societies, namely, the International Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), ACM, AAAS, IEEE and IAPR.
Under the leadership of such outstanding experts, it is really worth looking forward to whether THE School of Artificial Intelligence of NTU can stand out.
The Institute of Artificial Intelligence of UCAS is directly in charge of experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with academician Tan Tieniu, director Xu Bo and other state-level experts in charge. The technical level is undoubtedly beyond doubt. However, in the process of data collection, we always found that there was no content under the current scientific research column of the school, and the word “part-time” was particularly obvious on the page.
Like Nanjing University, at present, because the college has just been established, the information is temporarily lacking.
The current academic research and achievements of the school are as follows:
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Based on the basic theory of learning and optimization of natural intelligence, won the second prize of 2013 National Natural Science Award.
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Research on theoretical methods of image structure modeling and visual appearance reconstruction won the second prize of 2016 National Natural Science Award.
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Research on the theory and method of coding aliasing imaging and computational reconstruction, won the second prize of the 2017 National Natural Science Award.
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School-enterprise collaboration, teaching and science integration, diversified opening, deepening the exploration and practice of modern electronic information practice teaching reform, won the second prize of National Teaching Achievements in 2014.
At the same time, the school has established 23 national, provincial and ministerial level joint research platforms.
Information is temporarily unavailable.
Source: Official website of Graduate School, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Information is temporarily unavailable.
Source: Official website of School of Artificial Intelligence, Xidian University
Above college institute of artificial intelligence are respectively opened a school of undergraduate and graduate students, in the process of we sorting data and found a common problem: artificial intelligence seem to have the ordinary university undergraduate courses of the college computer professional, there is no much difference, have even on zhihu netizens questioned to open the purpose of the institute of artificial intelligence like this: Is it following suit or really eager to cultivate talent?
In February, we saw the 2018 CSRankings (http://csrankings.org), which aims to help people understand the strength of universities around the world in terms of systems and faculty in computer science. The rankings, based entirely on research metrics, measure the number of papers published by most faculty members at major computer science institutions. This is an open source project developed by Emery Berger, a professor in the School of Information and Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In addition to making comprehensive comparisons across disciplines, it can also rank individual subjects by selecting different subject categories.
Project links:
https://github.com/emeryberger/CSrankings
The ranking measures the strength of universities based on their publications over the past decade (2007-2018) (data deadline: February 19, 2018) : Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University are ranked in the top three in the overall discipline ranking, while Tsinghua University is the only Chinese university in the top 20, at 13th. In the AI category alone, Carnegie Mellon University remains the world’s top school, while Tsinghua University and Cornell University move into second and third places. Peking University also enters the top 20 in China.
Top 20 Global Universities in Computer Science
Top 20 Universities in the World (AI only)
In the global environment, the popularity and attention of artificial intelligence in recent years is obvious to all, in which Chinese researchers have played a very important role. In recent years, Chinese universities have made great efforts in ARTIFICIAL intelligence research. Research papers signed by Chinese people have swept the global AI summit. Even AAAI has adjusted the time of its meeting to avoid the Chinese Spring Festival. The country has also issued a number of policies to strongly support enterprises and universities to develop artificial intelligence innovation research and application, recently in the two sessions of the premier is once again emphasized (see AI Front report two sessions of the premier endorses artificial intelligence, developers and enterprises how to deal with?) .
As a result, the establishment of artificial intelligence schools in various universities in China is not only a result of the trend, but also a result of accumulated research. As the President of nanjing university isley told surging news in an interview, ntu in artificial intelligence “is not just do it, but have very good accumulation”, such as new technology state key laboratory of computer software has three consecutive 15 years ranked first in the field of national computer, professor zhou did is very famous in the field of artificial intelligence, He is the first Chinese Fellow of “Grand Slam”, an important institute related to artificial intelligence in the world. Machine learning will be the strength of NTU’s School of Artificial Intelligence, as will natural language understanding and image recognition.
On the other hand, the development of ARTIFICIAL intelligence is in full swing, but the scarcity of professional talent has been a big obstacle to its faster development. Over the past few years, the global market for AI professionals has grown exponentially. As companies of all kinds increasingly use AI solutions to support their businesses, the demand for skilled, experienced people with doctorates has been growing strongly. According to a recent report on global AI talent compiled by AI Frontier, there are only about 22,000 researchers with PHDS working in AI research and application worldwide. The reason why universities set up artificial intelligence schools is also to better reserve professional talents.
Quote lu Bo’s answer to the same question on Zhihu:
To sum up, the establishment of artificial Intelligence School by NTU is not only a response to the trend, but also a practical action to support the nanjing Municipal government’s strategy of innovating famous cities.
Some of my friends have questioned the necessity of setting up an AI academy. In my experience as an entrepreneur, the worst thing you can do in a bad situation is to sit back and do nothing.
In fact, this is not the first time that universities have created a school dedicated to hot technologies. Back in 2015, when big data was still a hot technology topic, Fudan University in Shanghai invested in establishing a school dedicated to big data. The School of Big Data at Fudan University focuses on data science and big data technology, with multiple disciplines including big Data Statistics and analysis, Big Data Systems and Computing, and Big Data and Intelligent Science. It is understood that the college adopts the “2+2” mode of undergraduate training. Students majoring in related majors in Fudan University can apply for joining the joint training courses of the School of Big Data after finishing the first and second year of study, and have the opportunity to enter the professional master’s and master’s and doctoral programs of the School of Big Data after completing the undergraduate study.
In zhihu’s “How about fudan’s Direction of Data Science and Big Data Technology?” “, several students who are currently studying at fudan University’s School of Big Data expressed their feelings. Most of them expressed satisfaction with their study at the school, with one replying that “no matter what direction you are interested in in data science, it is a good place to go.” Although the establishment of the college also raised questions about the necessity of it, and the faculty, data resources and courses are certainly not perfect, there are still many benefits for the students.
Whether it is the School of Big Data or the school of artificial intelligence, as long as it can devote itself to teaching and research and cultivate more professionals, instead of following the trend, it is always a good attempt. Let’s wait and see the effect!
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http://csrankings.org
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How do you view the establishment of the School of Artificial Intelligence in Nanjing University?
https://www.zhihu.com/question/268284588
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How about the direction of Data Science and big data technology in Fudan University?
https://www.zhihu.com/question/47817486
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https://www.zhihu.com/question/268284588
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https://www.zhihu.com/question/61547593
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https://www.zhihu.com/question/266837399
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https://www.zhihu.com/question/67338177
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