A joint laboratory of machine intelligence was officially inaugurated by Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK(SZ)) and Tencent’s AI Lab at the university campus in Longgang District on Tuesday afternoon.
The joint lab will mainly recruit Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers in fields like artificial intelligence (AI) and big data. Tencent will be providing funds for the joint lab.
“CUHK(SZ) has been focusing on education for the past few years since its establishment, and we have built a rather comprehensive system for our students. Now, we are looking at building up more high-end platforms, like the joint labs, to conduct research programs and attract top scientists,” said Luo Zhiquan, vice president of CUHK(SZ), who is also one of the directors of the new joint lab.
According to Professor Luo, the joint lab will take on three major tasks, namely cultivating Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers, conducting research programs in AI and big data, and attracting top-notch talents and scientists to the university.
Zhang Tong, the chief of Tencent AI Lab as well as the other director of the joint lab, said at Tuesday’s inauguration ceremony that the team involved in the AI Lab project at Tencent has been working with multiple top universities in China and other countries and has a deep understanding of all of Tencent’s products.
“We believe that the new joint lab can not only offer financial support to professors, researchers and students here, but also link their researches with the applications of technologies at Tencent,” said Zhang, who is also a well-known scientist.
According to Zhang, although China has a lot of opportunities for applying the latest technologies, such as facial recognition, facial payment and so forth, the country is still far behind compared to some of the countries with strong research capabilities in terms of basic science.
“The joint lab will focus on cultivating the researchers’ ability to innovate and come up with original algorithms that can be widely applied,” said Zhang.
While the joint lab inaugurated Tuesday is targeting Ph.D. students and researchers, the university also arranged for a comprehensive ability test to be administered for high school graduates from Guangdong Province in the morning.
Nearly 1,800 students sat for the independent exam Tuesday, and 180 of them will be selected to study in the university’s bachelor programs this fall.
The university will also take 36 students from Guangdong Province solely based on the results of the National College Entrance Exams, which ended last week.