On November 6, Professor Zhiquan Luo, Foreign Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Executive Dean of the Shenzhen Loop Area Institute, and Vice President of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen), was invited to attend the "AI Era" thematic event marking the third anniversary of "Shenzhen Venture Capital Day" and delivered a keynote report. He shared the Institute's philosophy on talent cultivation and development, garnering widespread attention.

The event coverage is reproduced below, focusing on new explorations in AI talent cultivation and witnessing new practices in industry-academia-research integration.

Professor Luo pointed out that the core of the current global AI competition is the competition for talent. Compared to the Western training model dominated by enterprises with strong theory-practice coupling, China's industry-academia-research system remains relatively fragmented. In this context, the Shenzhen Loop Area Institute was established, committed to building a "four-unlike" new type of educational institution—neither a traditional university, nor a pure research institute, nor a national laboratory, nor a corporation. Instead, it aims to be a "new-era Southwest Associated University" that integrates high-quality educational resources with scientific and technological talent.

"We aim to combine the educational resources of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area with Shenzhen's strengths in industrial innovation, to become the AI research institute for the enterprises you all represent, to serve as your backyard" said Professor Luo. He stated that the Shenzhen Loop Area Institute would take real-world corporate problems as its research subjects, achieving deep integration of technological innovation and industrial application through close industry-academia-research collaboration.

The Shenzhen Loop Area Institute is characterized by three distinctive features: internationalization, interdisciplinary integration, and deep industry engagement. Backed by Hong Kong and Macao, the Institute employs full English instruction and recruits outstanding faculty and students globally. Currently, 237 doctoral students have been enrolled, 40% of whom come from Hong Kong universities. The Institute has also recruited 13 full-time professors worldwide and selected approximately 110 jointly-appointed professors from its participating universities.

In terms of research organization, the Shenzhen Loop Area Institute innovatively adopts a "synthesized heavy brigade" model. By breaking down traditional disciplinary barriers, driven by deep interdisciplinary integration, and powered by a rapid-iteration research mechanism, it enhances team collaboration efficiency to forge a new research paradigm integrating theoretical breakthroughs, technological innovation, and application expansion. Focusing on key areas like artificial intelligence, the Institute has established five major research centers covering AI Theory and Systems, Language Models and Human-Computer Interaction, Embodied Intelligence and Computer Vision, Science and Engineering Intelligence, and Social Science Intelligence.

Professor Luo introduced that the Institute has established deep collaborations with leading domestic AI enterprises. Some of these leading companies have dispatched experts to be stationed long-term at the Shenzhen Loop Area Institute as corporate mentors, jointly advancing research and teaching. Furthermore, the Institute is focusing on frontier areas such as communication network world models, intelligent simulation and healthcare, and social simulation systems.

Looking ahead, Professor Luo emphasized that the short-term goal of the Shenzhen Loop Area Institute is to explore a new tripartite development model integrating education, technology, and talent. Its long-term goal is to cultivate AI talent capable of competing at the world's top level, providing continuous high-end talent support for the nation and all sectors of industry, academia, and research.

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