“Perhaps, one day, artificial intelligence may prove to be smarter than the smartest human being, or even surpass the collective wisdom of all the smartest people put together. Then, what will human beings do?" "What kind of reform and revolution will artificial intelligence bring to higher education? And what kind of talents should we cultivate to meet the demand of future intelligent manufacturing development?” Academicians, universities presidents, deans of AI institutes and scholars from smart businesses asked these and other questions in in-depth exchanges and discussions on AI talent cultivation at the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Talent Training Forum held on May 19 in Tianjin.

As a preliminary event of the 5th World Intelligence Congress that opened on May 20, and one of its summit forums, the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Talent Training Forum addressed the theme of 'AI+ Education', and harbored 16 keynote speeches about education reform brought about by AI development and AI talent cultivation in terms of industry and education integration, school-enterprise cooperation and high-quality AI education system construction.

It was revealed at the forum that Tianjin Municipality has basically completed the discipline layout and institutional integration in the field of artificial intelligence.  Six higher education institutions in the city have set up artificial intelligence colleges, and 11 universities have been authorized to confer AI doctoral, master's and bachelors degrees. Emerging programs such as "Intelligent Science and Technology", "Intelligent Medical Engineering", "Robot Engineering", "Data Science and Big Data Technology", and "Intelligent Manufacturing Engineering" have been established and are effectively supporting the cultivation of artificial intelligence talents. 

The Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Talent Training Forum was initiated by the Tianjin Municipal Education Commission and organized by Tianjin University, Tianjin University of Technology and Tianjin Sino-German University of Applied Sciences with the assistance of the Tianjin Association for Artificial Intelligence and the Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences.