For decades China has been the great factory of the world, but in parallel the country silently prepared another revolution: that of its Stem engineers (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Chinese leadership in graduates in these technical disciplines is overwhelming, and every year it produces about 3.5 million new engineers among which there is a new elite: that of AI engineers.
China triumphs with its long -term plan. It all started in the “post-mao” era. After his death and the arrival to the power of Deng Xiaoping, the country suffered a remarkable reform that began with its “four modernizations.” And among them, to restore education with a special focus on science and technology. The president highlighted in 1988 how “science and technology are the main productive forces,” and encouraged a unique change.
You have gui. In the mid -80s China began sending a huge number of students to Western countries. The objective: to learn in their universities and achieve training in fields such as engineering, physics, chemistry and mathematics. Those students then returned to China in a phenomenon that has been called “Hai Gui” (“sea turtles”). They managed to inspire the following generations when returning to Chinese academic institutions, which gradually became some of the most advanced in the world.
Chinese elite universities. It happened for example with the University of Tshinghua, which between 2013 and 2016 was already the university with the highest number of relevant (cited) scientific studies according to a study by The Economist. Behind were prestigious US institutions such as Stanford or MIT. As Yang Bin, vice president of the University of Tsinghua, explained, “those intellectuals (the” hai gui “) played a very important role, changing the entire climate, raising the standards.”
Money and more money to educate. The long -term plan of the Asian giant has worked, and today they leave their universities 3.57 million Stem graduates a year. In the US the figure is four times lower: 820,000. Education spending has not dropped from 4% of its GDP in the last 20 years, and incentives for Chinese academics to publish studies are notable: if they are of great quality and they are published in Western institutions, they can enter $ 100,000 per study.
And the AI is now a fundamental focus. Between 2012 and 2022 the budget spending of the Chinese government in education increased from 2.2 billion yuan (268,167 million euros) to 4.85 billion yuan (591,187 million euros), more than double. Several Chinese elite universities have announced their intention to expand their curricula with the objective of prioritizing the strategic needs of the country, and here the AI - which is already teaching in schools – is key.
Ten years projects. In that article of The Economist, they also reveal how since 1995 the Chinese government has initiated various projects to revolutionize its educational environment. First, the so -called Project 211 arrived, which aimed to “prepare approximately 100 universities for the 21st century.” Later they were replaced with the so-called “Double First-Class Construction”, and under Xi Jinping in 2016, which further promoted technical certifications and high training of Chinese technical universities.
IA superstars. We have four good examples of all that great reform. Shengjia Zhao, Hongyu Ren, Jiahui Yu and Shuchao Bi are Superestrellas of the AI. Especially after the goal “struck” in Openai’s house and steal them tempting them with stratospheric salaries. They all have something important in common: their training.
Talent theft. Zuck confirmed these days in an internal statement filtered by CNBC those signings. There were 11 engineers, 7 of which come from Openai. In that statement, the formation of a new division of “superintelligence” led by Alexandr Wang was also confirmed. And he, in turn, welcomed four of those new companions we were talking about.
Who they are. Their names are not known, but these four engineers have had a very relevant role in the development of AI models in OpenAi. In the internal statement itself there is talk of your work in Openai, which has been the following:
- Jiahui Yu-Co-Creator of O3, O4-MINI, GPT-4.1 and GPT-4O. He previously directed the perception team in OpenAi and multimodal co -directed in Gemini.
- SHENGJIA ZHAO-Co-Creader of Chatgpt, GPT-4, all MINI, 4.1 and O3 models. He previously directed synthetic data in OpenAI. It has appeared in some of Openai’s product presentations.
- Shuchao Bi: GPT-4O and O4-MINI voice mode co-creator. He previously directed the subsequent multimodal formation in Openal.
- Hongyu Ren: GPT-4o cooker, 4O-mini, O1-mini, O3-mini, 03 and O4-mini. He previously directed a postformation group in Openal.
100% Chinese talent. But what is striking here is that as they point out in SCMP, these four engineers share a similar and very significant academic trajectory. All of them trained in prestigious Chinese technical universities, and then continue their studies in academic entities in the United States.
They graduate in China, they do doctorate in the US. Zhao graduated from the University of Tshinghua in 2016 and then computer study at Stanford University. Ren graduated at the University of Beijing in 2018 and continued studying at Stanford from 2018 to 2023. Yu was titled at the School of Young Talents from the University of Science and Technology of China and then doctorate in computer science at the University of Illinois Urbano-Champaign. And Bi graduated from the University of Zhejiang and then doctorate in mathematics at the University of California in Berkeley.
China is the great world engineer quarry. The Asian giant is also in terms of its academic dimension. It is by far the largest world producer of graduates in Stem races (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). They know that well in the US, because Chinese students are the ones who take the highest share of foreign students studying or complete their studies in the US: 20% of all of them come from China.
And above all, of AI engineers. A report from the Paulgo Institute in Chicago (USA) recently revealed that 38% of AI experts who develop their professional career in the US have trained in Chinese universities. They are in fact more than those who have a strictly American origin (37%).
But there are more cases. Many US technology companies know well that the talent of China is exceptional. Nvidia, for example, recently hired two prominent Chinese engineers: Banghua Zhu and Jiantao Jiao, who trained at the University of Tshinghua. Both announced the signing in X and posed in photos with Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia.
And meanwhile, Trump shooting more shots on his feet. Donald Trump’s government announced a few weeks ago his intention to “aggressively revoke” the visa of Chinese students. The national security excuse can be reasonable, but what can happen is that if the US stops the concession of these visas, the country’s AI industry weakens, especially when many of the best current talents come from China.
Image | Lan lin | Village Global
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