Tsinghua University Emerges as China’s AI Powerhouse Amid Government Backing
Tsinghua University's Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence hums with quiet intensity, its whiteboards dense with formulas and walls freshly painted. Here, researchers dissect how the human brain processes thought—a foundational pursuit for China's artificial intelligence ambitions.
The rise of DeepSeek, an AI startup founded by Tsinghua alumni, has galvanized students. 'DeepSeek showed that a Chinese team could lead in the LLM race,' says Yuyang Zhang, a computational biology PhD candidate. The sentiment reflects Beijing's strategic pivot: President Xi Jinping, a Tsinghua graduate himself, has prioritized AI development through tax breaks, subsidies, and policy support.
Private enterprises have followed suit. DeepSeek's Liang Wenfeng secured venture capital while state media lionized his work alongside Xi's directives. Tsinghua's influence extends beyond academia—its graduates helm AI divisions at Alibaba and ByteDance, while university labs develop specialized chips like Accel to challenge Nvidia's dominance.
Two breakthroughs exemplify Tsinghua's edge: DrugCLIP, an AI system accelerating drug discovery, and Absolute Zero Reasoner, a training method eliminating human-provided data. These innovations underscore China's methodical climb up the technology value chain.
