One core with multiple competences, catalyzing intelligence fusion-toward a world-class AI school with bit distinction

Artificial intelligence (AI) stands as the central focus of global technological competition, with the cultivation of AI talent constituting its pivotal underpinning. Against the dual backdrop of intensifying global AI rivalry and a severe domestic shortage of AI professionals, this study examines the establishment of the AI School at Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) as its research subject and explores innovative pathways for the intelligent transformation of China’s higher education in the AI era. BIT has holistically integrated its internal and external AI resources and platforms to establish its AI School at a high starting point and under stringent benchmarks. With a target of becoming a world-class, BIT-distinctive AI School by 2030, the School is dedicated to fostering a new ecosystem for cultivating homegrown exceptional interdisciplinary AI talent, revolutionizing educational paradigms with AI technology as the core driver, concentrating efforts to build national-security-focused AI strengths, and constructing a smart operational support system underpinning the green and high-quality development of BIT. Functioning as an integrated “one core with multifaceted competences” AI innovation complex, encompassing talent development, educational reform, scientific research, and management services, the AI School catalyzes BIT’s “intelligence fusion” in the AI era. This study thereby provides an exemplary model for the intelligent transformation of higher education.