A new artificial intelligence (AI) training system has been launched in China, which aims to encourage enterprises to cooperate with schools and offer research tutors and chances to practice for students.
A college in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province has cooperated with Tencent to launch AI technology training lessons, Wang Yinfeng, vice president of the software department at the Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology, said at a forum about AI education held in Beijing on Thursday.
Relevant enterprises researching AI technology should help schools to develop more scientific lessons and offer practice platforms for students, the project leader at Tencent said at the forum.
"Now each student at our school has two mentors. One is from the college and the other is from Tencent, both of them tutoring the students together," Wang said. The teacher from Tencent is a researcher at the company and can offer more practical advice and experience for students.
Wang noted that enterprises with advanced information technology can help schools to build cloud data platforms for the data students need during the learning and teaching process.
The college offers AI training in various areas, including programming, information theory and formal logic, according to Wang.
Shenzhen University also has a cooperation program with Tencent. Feng Yuhong, deputy director of the university's AI department, said that at each second semester in the freshman year, they will select 30 students who have qualifications to enter the AI special class jointly run with Tencent.
The examination consists of three parts: a written and computer-based test, and interviews by teachers from the school and by staff members of the company.
Feng noted that the researchers from the company join in designing lessons for students and also take them to attend the company's AI projects, letting students have more opportunities to have practice after learning the theories.
"After cooperating with enterprises, we have clearer and more advanced standards about our training lessons as we get close to applied AI products," Feng said. "Our teachers can instantly revise their lesson settings according to the latest need."
AI lessons cover many fields of AI technology, including speech recognition and robot manufacturing, Tencent's project leader said.
Besides helping design lessons and offering practical platforms, the company has also opened a short-term training camp for students majoring in AI. The camp imitates the real working environment of enterprises to allow students to adapt to it in advance.
