Chinese universities are entering a new phase of artificial intelligence adoption, in which the technology stops being a standalone course or experimental module and becomes a cross-cutting element of teaching, research, campus management, and student assessment. The key document of this course is the 'Artificial Intelligence + Education' Action Plan, published in April 2026. Its main goal is to form, by 2030, a deeply integrated AI education system in which artificial intelligence ceases to be an 'add-on' and becomes foundational educational content for universities.
From Standalone Courses to Systemic Integration
In higher education, the plan calls not merely for adding machine learning courses, but for restructuring academic programs themselves: interdisciplinary tracks are being promoted, and existing subjects are being adapted to changing economic structures and labor market demands. In essence, AI becomes a basic component of training, on par with mathematics or a foreign language — it is expected to permeate humanities, technical, and natural science fields simultaneously.
A National Computing Platform Instead of 'Every Man for Himself'
An important aspect of the strategy, as experts point out, is the move away from a model in which each university develops its own AI tools in isolation. Beijing is striving to create shared infrastructure to reduce costs and limit duplicated investment. Specifically, the plan proposes forming a national platform of intelligent computing services for education that will consolidate computing power, data, models, and tools, and link universities, enterprises, and computing centers into a single ecosystem.
Restructuring of Majors and Cuts to Humanities Programs
In parallel with the expansion of AI tracks in Chinese universities, the structure of academic programs is being reviewed. According to reports, thousands of programs have been discontinued at universities, including in the humanities, in order to reallocate resources toward technological and AI disciplines. This underscores the scale of a structural, rather than cosmetic, reform: the state is effectively redirecting educational flows toward competencies considered critical for the economy's competitiveness.
Contradictory Data
Open sources show discrepancies in assessing the pace and nature of the rollout. On the one hand, several publications already noted in 2025 that AI had become a mandatory part of the educational process in China, i.e., integration is described as a fait accompli. On the other hand, the 2026 plan frames its goals as targets for the period up to 2030, indicating that full systemic integration has not yet been achieved and is still in progress. The scale of program cancellations is also presented with varying degrees of specificity across publications — from 'thousands of programs' to more general statements about the restructuring of humanities tracks — so exact figures require additional verification.
Expert Assessments and Risks
Experts emphasize that the bet on shared infrastructure is a rational step that helps avoid fragmentation and excessive costs, but success depends on the speed of building the computing platform and the quality of the data. At the same time, the question of AI's role in academic integrity is raised: as artificial intelligence becomes both a teaching tool and an object of assessment, universities will have to rethink their approaches to theses and exams in order to distinguish a student's independent work from generated content.
