Today, the world's technology industry is facing a reshuffle.
The scientific and technological elements necessary for traditional technology enterprises in production can no longer meet their development in the new era. At the beginning of 2023, ChatGPT set off a wave of discussion about the direction of AI. So far, the technology industry structure is not what it was three months ago.
It is clear that AI has become an important trump card in the global technology industry. But under the halo and voice, its talent gap is equally striking: according to Goldman Sachs' prediction in the "Global Artificial Intelligence Industry Layout", the talent gap in the Chinese industry will exceed 5 million by 2030.
To sew up this gap of 5 million, it is necessary to innovate the concept and model of AI talent training. "It is necessary to cultivate compound AI talents through the deep integration of professions and industries." In the face of talent shortage, Xiong Shengwu, Dean of the School of Computer and Artificial Intelligence of Wuhan University of Technology, who has been engaged in artificial intelligence teaching and research for many years, insists on promoting talent training and the integration of industry and education under the "AI+X" paradigm, creating a group of practitioners with compound professional backgrounds and thinking, so that AI can truly become an important root technology that can support thousands of industries.
Artificial intelligence research is moving towards crossover, and compound talents are in hot hands
"With the maturity of artificial intelligence technology, future research in this field will show the characteristics of multidisciplinary cross-integration." Xiong Shengwu believes that artificial intelligence must be deeply integrated with other industries to realize its great potential, and compound talents who understand artificial intelligence and master other disciplines such as materials, transportation, automotive, manufacturing, biology, finance, and design will be the "group pet" of the AI industry.
How to cultivate compound talents? Xiong Shengwu believes that the integration of talent training and innovation research bases should be strengthened, and at the same time, with the help of industrial advantages, schools and enterprises should jointly formulate training plans, build a new ecology for the cultivation of new engineering talents, and cultivate top-notch talents of "AI+X" with both practical and innovative capabilities.
Based on this starting point, Xiong Shengwu took the lead in building a virtual teaching and research department. In 2014, he first came into contact with Huawei's innovative practical courses, which gradually inspired enterprises to integrate more practical resources and cases into the regular curriculum of schools. In August 2022, the Ministry of Education-Huawei "Intelligent Pedestal" virtual teaching and research department was launched to integrate cutting-edge technologies of industrial development into education and teaching – a move that Xiong Shengwu leveraged the "intelligent pedestal" industry-education integration collaborative education base and the virtual teaching and research department of deep learning courses to jointly build an open platform for the sharing of industry, education and research resources to support the cultivation of compound talents. For his outstanding contributions, Xiong Shengwu was named the first batch of leaders of Ascend.
Relying on the "intelligent base", the School of Computer and Artificial Intelligence of Wuhan University of Technology deepens the connotation of artificial intelligence, builds a training system that places equal emphasis on basic theoretical talents and "AI+X" compound talents, explores a new model of deeply integrated discipline construction and talent training, and provides more adequate talent support for the mainland to seize the world's scientific and technological frontier and achieve major breakthroughs in leading original achievements.
"AI+X" is more like a carrier, undertaking a deeper exploration of talent training. In Xiong Shengwu's vision, "AI+X" is not only to combine AI with other related disciplines and industries, but also to empower more industries and allow more disciplines to use AI technology to conduct related research. It is understood that the virtual teaching and research department integrates multidisciplinary and professional in curriculum construction and resource construction, such as materials, building materials construction, intelligent construction, agriculture and national cultural heritage protection; The school also combines front-line cases with teaching and develops curriculum resources to explain to students.
When the artificial intelligence industry puts forward new requirements for the development of the times, the concept of discipline construction oriented by industrial needs has been recognized by the industry, and the training direction of colleges and universities has gradually shifted from adapting to services to supporting and leading. In the face of these changes, the virtual teaching and research department of the "intelligent base" deep learning course led by Xiong Shengwu takes core technology as the main line and cutting-edge application as the traction, and explores the knowledge connotation required by artificial intelligence, such as a solid mathematical foundation, a good computer foundation (computing, algorithm, program foundation), and at the same time opens a number of professional courses for key technologies of artificial intelligence, and opens up more diversified practical activities for different application fields.
The key to composite AI talents may not be "compound", but "conform" - meeting the needs of AI to empower thousands of industries and meet society's expectations for AI functions. This is why the Ministry of Education-Huawei "Intelligent Pedestal" virtual teaching and research department has achieved results, which collaborates with universities to consolidate students' hands-on practical ability, inspire students' innovation ability, and lay a solid foundation for the multidisciplinary knowledge required by the major.
Integration of industry and education across deep water to create a stable "Chinese core"
In the face of the huge demand for compound AI talents in the society, the integration of industry and education in the AI industry needs to cross the deep water area, vigorously promote the training of industry-education integration talents based on independent intellectual property rights computing root technology, and create a stable "Chinese core".
"Lack of core and less soul" has always been a pain in the heart of the mainland's information technology and industrial development, facing this demand, with the help of the high-quality platform built by schools and enterprises to achieve the two-way growth of technology and talents, has become the goal of universities and enterprises to strive for. The Ministry of Education-Huawei "Intelligent Pedestal" virtual teaching and research department not only allows university teachers and students to understand cutting-edge technologies and industry trends, but also forms positive interactions with society and enterprises. It can also promote the reform of the integrated curriculum of computing platforms with independent intellectual property rights, such as the Ascend processor and the MindSpore open source framework, so as to provide high-quality talents for the Ascend industry and ultimately promote the development of root technology.
"'China Chip' needs more compound talents, and the cultivation of talents needs a more open ecology." What is Openness? In Xiong Shengwu's view, the introduction of external industrial forces and the strengthening of exchanges and cooperation inside and outside the university are "open". "And at this level, a lot of things need to be self-reliant."
According to Xiong Shengwu, the virtual teaching and research room of the deep learning course led by him has a course group including the principles and applications of processors, artificial intelligence programming, computer vision, deep learning, and the principles and applications of intelligent systems. From programming design, deep learning framework to Ascend open source artificial intelligence framework, from complete processor program design to system construction, based on Ascend's processor, computing architecture and final application for talent training, and relying on the virtual teaching and research department to specially open "AI+X" micro-major, the deep technology in it into teaching resources, using these platforms, technologies and open source framework, develop AI application systems suitable for thousands of industries, and realize the completion of talent training under the framework of independent intellectual property root technology.
Students who participated in the "Smart Pedestal" project significantly improved their professional knowledge and code standardization, teamwork and communication skills, and their learning changed from passive to active. At the same time, they have the opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of the different focuses of university and industry research, which can lay a solid foundation for future career development and achieve bilateral growth between universities and industry.
Under the guidance of the Ministry of Education, Huawei will further deepen its "intelligent pedestal" and make root technologies such as Kunpeng, Ascend, and HUAWEI CLOUD essential technologies for science and engineering students through "expanding teaching materials, covering more universities, training more outstanding teachers, and improving multi-dimensional teaching methods."
Deepen the "compound" requirements and open up the "last mile" of talent training
"In order to achieve true openness, we have set up cross-regional clubs." Xiong Shengwu introduced that Wuhan University of Technology has established the "Shengsi Club", based on the different majors and universities of Ascend and Ascend, students from different universities can join for technical exchanges and participate in MindSpore, and Huawei's engineers will also participate, and students can communicate with them at any time when they encounter difficulties. While creating a good open ecosystem, this mechanism also "invites" the front-line technology ecology into the classroom to help new developers understand and actively participate in the "MindSpore Community Usability SIG".
In Xiong Shengwu's view, "Shengsi Society" is an extension of the virtual teaching and research department and plays a key role in the cultivation of compound talents. To achieve compound talent training, the virtual teaching and research department has opened up the key "last mile".
"The virtual department is a virtual subversion of traditional teaching methods, teaching methods, teaching content and teaching organization in a virtual way compared to physical teaching and research departments." It is understood that the Ministry of Education specially approved 17 virtual teaching and research departments of "intelligent pedestal" in 2022 to condense and apply the excellent results of "intelligent pedestal". Based on root technologies such as Kunpeng, Ascend, and HUAWEI CLOUD, these virtual teaching and research departments are led by famous teachers and first-class major/course leaders, making full use of the achievements of "intelligent pedestals", gathering the best backbone teachers in the country, leveraging thousands of troops to cultivate computing industry talents, forming cross-space, cross-regional, and interdisciplinary construction exchanges, and realizing the open sharing of high-quality educational resources.
Practice and openness are the "last mile" of compound talent training - only by allowing full communication between disciplines and effective matching of practice and classroom can the role of "compound" be brought to the extreme, and "AI+X" top-notch talents with stronger adaptability, practical and innovative ability, and international competitiveness of independent advanced computing technology can be cultivated.
Leading and radiating is the "last mile" for the integration of industry and education to exert practical effects on education. The "Intelligent Base" virtual teaching and research department is timely for the resource construction, teacher training and capacity building of general computing and AI computing. "At present, college teachers in underdeveloped areas lack the practice and understanding of the front-line situation, and the suitability of the students and positions they train is greatly reduced." Xiong Shengwu expressed his concerns about the cultivation of AI talents, and also introduced the important role of the virtual teaching and research department - to achieve the multilateral radiation of teaching content with points and surfaces. This kind of open teaching allows teachers from provincial universities and colleges and universities in the central and western regions to participate, and mutual motivation between teachers can effectively promote the improvement of ability.
"We want to build a cooperative alliance to empower talent development in the form of interactive communication." According to reports, the "Intelligent Base" virtual teaching and research department will cooperate with the "101 Plan" universities to integrate relevant courses and build course groups and knowledge graphs in the field of artificial intelligence deep learning. "Together with Huawei, we plan to extend our experience in the integration of industry and education to universities in the central and western regions and provincial universities to contribute to their teacher training."
If compound training is an important way to alleviate the shortage of AI talents and improve the suitability of talents and positions, then the virtual teaching and research department is an important engine to help the cultivation of compound talents. The development of AI is a long way off, and higher education must continue to make efforts to steadily improve the quality of talent training.
Compound talent training has become a "must-answer question" in front of AI development. At present, the technology industry is moving from the traditional economic era to a new layout, which means that single-discipline training will gradually withdraw from the "C" position of the stage. Among them, with the help of the virtual teaching and research department, AI talent training will smoothly realize the transformation of teaching logic. And this is also a huge opportunity for all AI practitioners.
— END —
Author | Shi Yino
Co-ordination | Zhou Caili
Educator Magazine Submission Email: [email protected]
New media submission email: [email protected]