On May 15, Vice Minister of Education Wu Yan addressed two major parallel sessions at the 2025 World Digital Education Conference in Wuhan: “Smart Education—Reimagining and Elevating Higher Education Pedagogy” and the “International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Education.”

Wu emphasized that artificial intelligence is driving transformative change across industries and society—and education is no exception. He noted that China has taken a strategic, integrated approach to digitalizing higher education. According to the vice minister, China has advanced large-scale applications of smart education technologies through systematic efforts across teaching, learning, research, and administration, contributing a distinct Chinese model and experience to the global higher education landscape.

Wu highlighted that China has built the world’s largest Smart Education platform and is accelerating its intelligent upgrade. He said that the country is actively promoting AI in education, developing large-scale AI models tailored for educational use, and fostering global partnerships for knowledge exchange and collaborative innovation.

Wu proposed four key areas for international cooperation to advance AI in education. First, he called for joint exploration of new models and approaches to integrating AI into education systems. Second, he emphasized the shared development of AI-powered educational content designed to foster student creativity and higher-order thinking. Third, he underscored the need for collaborative teacher training programs to build digital and AI-related competencies among educators. Finally, he advocated for the co-creation of ethical and technical standards to ensure that AI applications in education are deployed in ways that are safe, inclusive, and equitable for all learners.