Fudan President Jin Li Talks on "How to Cultivate Students in the Era of Artificial Intelligence", a Popular Press Conference on Intelligence | Fudan University | President

The newly launched Fudan University intelligent computing platform completed training in just one day for a large model of medium - and short-term weather forecasting with 4.5 billion parameters, which is difficult for traditional computing platforms to achieve. The latest release of this "largest cloud based intelligent computing platform for Chinese universities" on the 27th has attracted much attention.

In the meantime, Jin Li, an academician of the CAS Member and president of Fudan University, thought about how to train students in the era of artificial intelligence and how to build the "first Fudan", as well as the concept of "two-way empowerment of schools and enterprises" reflected in this conference, also deserves attention.

One important way to get rid of the "sinkhole" is through the integration of industry and education

Currently, the "sinkhole" profession has sparked heated discussions. Jin Li believes that "one important way for schools to overcome this is through the integration of industry and education, and to closely interact and cooperate with enterprises in innovation and talent cultivation.".

In his view, this innovation is not simply about solving technological problems for enterprises, but about striving to play a leading role in international competition. This is a high requirement, while a low requirement is not to be "choked". In terms of talent cultivation, enterprises can see more of the needs of society, thereby helping universities clarify the goals of talent cultivation. Universities and enterprises have a dual empowerment relationship in innovation and talent cultivation.

"When we collaborated with Alibaba Cloud this time, when I first talked to Dr. Wang Jian, we didn't talk about products and benefits. We only talked about how to innovate, which has enabled our integration of industry and education to reach a new level," said Jin Li.

Wang Jian, an academician of the CAE Member and founder of Alibaba Cloud, is also optimistic about the prospect of cooperation with Fudan. "I often joke that when universities set up computer departments, they should thank a company called IBM. It was the cooperation between IBM and Columbia University that gave birth to the computer major." Wang Jian believes that the perspective of cooperation between universities and enterprises is still relatively narrow. In fact, school enterprise cooperation is not a simple relationship of "universities transforming achievements into enterprises". School enterprise cooperation can create many wonderful things, such as the collaboration between MIT and Bell Labs, which gave rise to the communication major that almost every university's engineering college has today.

Jinli stated that it will fully rely on the intelligent computing platform of Fudan University, strengthen cooperation with leading enterprises, trigger the nuclear explosion point of industrial upgrading through artificial intelligence, and catalyze the industrial technology upgrading in multiple breakthrough directions such as life and health, new drug research and development, new energy, new materials, and integrated circuits.

A Key Tool for Promoting the Transformation of Basic Research Paradigm

The traditional scientific research paradigm has undergone four stages of evolution: the empirical paradigm that describes natural phenomena through experiments, the theoretical paradigm that studies through models or induction, the computational paradigm that simulates through computer simulation, and the data paradigm that studies the internal relationships of things through big data analysis.

As the fifth paradigm of scientific research, "AI for Science" closely integrates artificial intelligence with various disciplines and has achieved breakthroughs in multiple fields.

Jin Li said that the construction of Fudan University's intelligent computing platform is first and foremost to use it as a key tool to promote the transformation of basic research paradigms, and to consciously shoulder the significant mission of leading the way and being a pioneer. Basic research continues to expand the boundaries between humans and nature, and the emergence of scientific intelligence has brought about a significant change in the paradigm of basic research. It targets massive scientific big data, generates, infers, and analyzes it through new technologies such as multimodality and big models, thereby discovering new substances, synthesizing new materials, and constructing new mechanisms.

"General Secretary Xi Jinping's request to Fudan University is to build the world's top university and create the 'first Fudan. 'Our basic research is going to be at the forefront of the world. Therefore, we will focus on building Fudan University's intelligent computing platform, a major scientific research facility, to fully stimulate the productivity of data element resources and computing resources, to stimulate a new scientific ecology of original innovation for artificial intelligence, and to submit a 'Fudan answer'." Jin Li said.

On the surface, the intelligent computing platform of Fudan University may seem to solve the problem of computing power, but what needs to be changed is the culture of innovation. Jin Li said, "'Fighting alone 'is no longer suitable for technological innovation in the era of big science. We often mention' organized scientific research 'now, and its biggest advantage lies in the layout and construction of large platforms, gathering resources in major scientific problems, engineering and technological difficulties, and industrial and technological problems, forming a research cluster to continuously tackle problems for a long time."

[Hope every graduate can make a difference in "interdisciplinary intersection"]

How do universities view artificial intelligence? Jin Li said that the emergence of electric lights has changed people's way of life, and artificial intelligence is also a technology at this level. It makes some previously difficult things easier, thereby changing relationships between people, or even changing lifestyles and social structures. "From the perspective of talent cultivation in universities, our positioning is very clear, which is to embrace this technology and enable students to have the ability to use these tools well. Of course, the negative aspects also need to be considered."

How do universities cultivate students in the era of artificial intelligence? Jin Li candidly stated that the existing training system in universities has encountered significant challenges, including interdisciplinary integration and the continuous emergence of new technologies. Fudan University attempts to provide students with more opportunities to integrate into interdisciplinary fields, and has established a "2+X" undergraduate training system for this purpose. "We hope to see over 3300 graduates every year, each with the ability to make a difference in interdisciplinary fields in the future."

The essence of universities is to seek truth and cultivate students, and Fudan University places talent cultivation at its core. Jin Li said that he will focus on relying on the intelligent computing platform of Fudan University and focus on cultivating composite high-end talents with both basic science and artificial intelligence knowledge systems. The school will aim to cultivate top-notch interdisciplinary talents who understand engineering, artificial intelligence, and science, forming a multi-disciplinary joint education pattern, continuously expanding scientific frontiers characterized by algorithms, data, and big models, and cultivating composite talents who can truly carry out scientific intelligence research and engineering applications.

"In the fierce international competition, we not only need to cultivate more engineers, but also outstanding engineers." Jin Li specifically mentioned the construction of the "New Engineering" at Fudan University. "The difference between New Engineering and Traditional Engineering is not only the mature technology, materials, and products, but also the need to turn those original things into our future products through engineering. This is not simply a matter of" quantity ", but also a matter of" quality "and" method "."

[Related link] What is "the first Fudan"

"There won't be a second Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, MIT, Cambridge in the world, but there will be the first famous Chinese universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, and Nanjing University."

-- Speech by General Secretary Xi Jinping during a discussion with teachers and students of Peking University on May 4, 2014