The new Fudan University intelligent computing platform completed training in only one day, which is difficult for traditional computing platforms to achieve. The latest release of this "largest cloud intelligent computing platform for Chinese universities" on the 27th attracted much attention.
In the meantime, Jin Li, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and president of Fudan University, on how to train students and how to build the "first Fudan" in the era of artificial intelligence, and the concept of "school-enterprise two-way empowerment" reflected in this press conference are also worthy of attention.
[To get rid of the "sinkhole", an important way is the integration of industry and education]
Nowadays, the "sinkhole" profession has aroused heated discussions. Jin Li believes that "one of the important ways for schools to get rid of this is to 'integrate industry and education', and closely interact and cooperate with enterprises in innovation and talent training."
In his view, this innovation is not simply to solve technical problems for enterprises, but to strive to play a leading role in international competition, which is a high requirement, and a low requirement is not to be "stuck in the neck". In terms of talent training, enterprises can see more of the needs of society, so as to help universities more clearly define the goals of talent training. Universities and enterprises have a "two-way empowerment" relationship in innovation and talent training.
"When we first talked to Dr. Wang Jian, we didn't talk about products and benefits, we only talked about how to innovate, which made our industry-education integration reach a new level." Jin Li said.
Wang Jian, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and founder of Alibaba Cloud, is also optimistic about the prospects of cooperation with Fudan. "I often joke that universities set up computer science departments thanks to a company, IBM, and it was IBM's cooperation with Columbia University that gave birth to the computer science major." Wang Jian believes that the cooperation perspective between universities and enterprises is still relatively narrow, in fact, school-enterprise cooperation is not a simple relationship between "universities to transform achievements into enterprises", school-enterprise cooperation can create a lot of wonderful things, such as MIT and Bell Labs cooperation, so that almost every university engineering school has a communication major today.
Jin Li said that it will fully rely on the intelligent computing platform of Fudan University, strengthen cooperation with leading enterprises, trigger the nuclear flashpoint 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.
【Key tools to promote the paradigm change of basic research】
The traditional scientific research paradigm has undergone four stages of evolution: the empirical paradigm of describing natural phenomena through experiments - the theoretical paradigm of research through models or induction - the computational paradigm of computer simulation simulation - the data paradigm of studying the internal relationship 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 made breakthroughs in many fields.
Jin Li said that the construction of the intelligent computing platform of Fudan University is first of all to take it as a key weapon to promote the transformation of the basic research paradigm, and consciously undertake the major mission of taking the lead and being a top soldier. Basic research continues to expand the boundary between man and nature, and the emergence of scientific intelligence has brought about a major change in the paradigm of basic research, which is aimed at massive scientific big data, through multi-modality, large model and other new technologies for generation, reasoning and analysis, so as to discover new substances, synthesize new materials, and construct new mechanisms.
"General Secretary Xi Jinping's requirement for Fudan University is to build a world-class university and build the 'first Fudan'. Our basic research will be at the forefront of the world. Therefore, we will focus on building the intelligent computing platform of Fudan University, a major scientific research facility, to comprehensively stimulate the productivity of data element resources and computing resources, and submit the 'Fudan Answer Sheet' for the new scientific ecology of artificial intelligence to stimulate original innovation." Jin Li said.
On the surface, Fudan University's intelligent computing platform is to solve the problem of computing power, but what needs to be changed is the culture of innovation. Jin Li said: "'Going it alone' is no longer suitable for scientific and technological innovation in the era of big science, and we often mention 'organized scientific research', whose biggest advantage lies in the layout and construction of a large platform, pooling resources in the fields of major scientific problems, engineering and technical problems and industrial technical problems, and forming a scientific research cluster force to continue to tackle key problems for a long time." ”
【I hope that each graduate will make a difference in "interdisciplinary intersection"】
How do universities view AI? Jin Li said that the production of electric lights has changed people's lifestyles, and artificial intelligence is also a technology at this level. It makes it easy to do some of the more difficult things, thus changing the relationship between people, or changing the way of life or even changing the social structure. "From the perspective of college talent training, our positioning is very clear, that is, to embrace this technology, so that students have the ability to use these tools well, of course, its negative things also need to be considered."
In the era of artificial intelligence, how do colleges and universities train students? Jin Li said frankly that the existing training system of colleges and universities has encountered great challenges, one is the interdisciplinary integration, and the other is the continuous emergence of new technologies. Fudan University tries to give students more opportunities to integrate into the interdisciplinary process, and has established a "2+X" undergraduate training system for this purpose. "We want to see more than 3,300 graduates each year, each with the ability to make a difference at the intersection of disciplines in the future."
The essence of the university is to seek truth and educate people, and Fudan University puts talent training at the core. Jin Li said that it will focus on relying on the intelligent computing platform of Fudan University and focus on cultivating compound high-end talents with both basic science and artificial intelligence knowledge system. The school will aim to cultivate top interdisciplinary talents who understand engineering, artificial intelligence and science, form a general pattern of multidisciplinary joint education, continuously expand the frontier direction of science featuring algorithms, data and large models, and cultivate compound talents who can truly carry out scientific intelligence research and engineering applications.
"In the tough international competition, we must not only train more engineers, but also cultivate excellent engineers." Jin Li specifically mentioned the construction of "new engineering" at Fudan University, "The difference between new engineering and traditional engineering is not only that there are mature technologies, materials and products, but also that those original things must be turned into our future products through engineering." This is not a question of "quantity", but of "quality" and "method". ”
【Related Link】What is "The First Fudan"
"There will not 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 Nanda University."
——On May 4, 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a speech at a symposium with teachers and students of Peking University
Editor-in-chief: Xu Ruizhe Source: Photo by Huang Haihua
Source: Author: Huang Haihua
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