Beijing, 11 October 2025 - The Open University of China (OUC) welcomed its new students majored in AI and Course-Learning Project for 2025 fall semester. OUC President WANG Qiming, Vice President FAN Xianrui and Distinguished Professor GAO Xiaopeng attended the event, together with students and faculty representatives from relevant departments. More than 200 new students participated online.
President WANG Qiming extended a warm welcome to the newcomers and applauded their courage to embrace the era of intelligence. He described the AI pilot class as “a test-bed for educational reform, a laboratory for smart education and a pioneer in cultivating interdisciplinary, application-oriented talent.” The university, he said, will pool the strength of the entire education system, draw on high-quality resources at home and abroad and ride the wave of digitalisation and AI to deliver high-quality AI education that enables learners to achieve systematic study in fragmented time. “OUC will be your lifelong learning companion, providing full-spectrum services during and after your studies,” he emphasised.
Vice President FAN Xianrui outlined the background, features and future of AI education at OUC and encouraged students to be diligent and reflective, combine knowledge with practice, and grow together through mutual support.
Professor GAO Xiaopeng shared ideas on programme development and learning strategies. LI Zhixiang, Deputy Dean of the OUC Experimental College, introduced the teaching plan of this semester. Faculty representative WANG Jiao voiced her expectations, while second-year student LIAN Peng recounted his first-year experience. New students CHEN Zirong, QIN Wei and NI Zheng explained why they chose AI and pledged to study hard and grow with the university.
OUC launched the AI undergraduate major from 2024 fall semester and the course-learning project in spring 2025. This autumn the university continues both programmes, enrolling 200 students with prior bachelor-level qualifications (including 8 doctoral and 67 master’s degree holders) and 78 students in the course-learning project. Going forward, OUC will build an AI education system for lifelong learners and create a new paradigm of digital-intelligent education.
By YAN Xiaohui, OUC