The School of Artificial Intelligence (SAI) at Jilin University was founded on May 26, 2018, to seize the development opportunities of artificial intelligence (AI), meet the national strategic needs, promote industrial transformation and upgrading, and promote local economic development transformation. The establishment of the SAI aims to implement the “Development Plan of the New Generation Artificial Intelligence” and “Higher Education Institution Artificial Intelligence Innovation Action Plan” with the mission to take the lead in the field of AI at the world’s scientific and technological frontiers, and enhance the ability of scientific and technological innovation, talents cultivation and serving the national strategic needs.

Jilin University (JLU) is one of the earliest institutions engaged in AI research in China. The Department of Computer Science was established in 1976. Prof. Wang Xianghao (academician) first proposed and undertook the research of AI in China in 1977 with a history of more than 40 years. JLU has a relatively strong scientific research accumulation and educational foundation in the field of AI research. At present, JLU has taken prominent advantages in its comprehensive disciplines, reasonable discipline structure which provides good conditions to develop AI with its rapid development of multiple disciplines, such as Computer Science and Technology, Mathematics, Information and Communication Engineering, Control Science and Technology and, etc.

Prof. Chang Yi, Dean of the SAI, is a National Distinguished Professor (2017), BCS Fellow of the British Computer Association, and a well-known scholar in the field of AI. He has served as Technical Director of Yahoo and Vice President of Huawei Research Institute in the United States. He has published more than 100 papers in top-tier conferences (CCF A/B) and journals, won the Best Paper Award of KDD 2016 (CCF A) and the Best Paper Award of WSDM 2016 (CCF B). He was the chair of WSDM 2018 (CCF B), and SIGIR 2020 (CCF A). As the project leader, he has lead 7 scientific research projects with a total research funding exceeds 100 million CNY.

At present, SAI has signed cooperation agreements or memorandums of strategic cooperation with five leading enterprises in the Internet industry, including H3C, Baidu, DiDi, ByteDance, and Qiming. Under the background of “AI Revolution”, the in-depth cooperation between universities and enterprises has responded positively to the call of “Industry-University Cooperation in Education”, which will carry out comprehensive and in-depth cooperation in talents cultivation, innovative scientific research projects, co-construction of AI related disciplines, and curriculum construction, so as to cultivate high-level technical talents to meet the needs of the construction of an innovative country.

SAI will plan from a high starting point, build with high standards, integrate and gather development resources, and not only fully take advantage of the existing discipline and faculty in the direction of AI, but also explore a new model for the development of AI in the new era. SAI will create a new path of connotative development of AI based on its practice, and devote to building a world-class and domestic leading talents cultivation base and scientific and technological innovation base in the field of AI, so as to make positive contributions to the country’s initiative in the new round of international scientific and technological competition. SAI is gradually establishing a multi-level training system with strong teaching and scientific research strength and dense academic atmosphere, and a relatively sound discipline foundation. SAI will seize the historical opportunity of change, gather resource advantages, and break through core technologies to gain the competitive edge of AI.