Education meets AI

Gaspard Banyankimbona has seen the anxiety many young people feel as artificial intelligence advances.

As commissioner for education, science, technology and innovation at the African Union Commission, he arrived at the 2026 World Digital Education Conference in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, with a clear message for students and teachers facing the rise of intelligent technologies: AI is not something to fear or avoid, but a tool people must learn to use wisely.

"AI is already with us. We cannot run away from it. We need to learn how to work with it," he said.

Held from May 11 to 13 under the theme "AI + Education: Transformation, Development, Governance", the conference brought together government officials, scientists and education experts from around the world to discuss how AI is reshaping learning, teaching and research.

Drawing on years of experience in education, Banyankimbona said that as AI tools make knowledge easier to access than ever, educators must rethink their role in the classroom.

"Teachers should become collaborators with students and guide them in areas AI can never replace, such as critical thinking, emotional intelligence and social intelligence," he said.

That idea — that AI is pushing education beyond the simple delivery of knowledge — ran through the conference. It was also on display at Hangzhou Chovan Century City Experimental School, where delegates saw how AI tools are being woven into everyday school life.

There, students use AI-assisted learning platforms that generate exercises based on the areas where they need more practice. The system helps them review difficult topics more efficiently and allows teachers to see where students need extra help.

In physical education classes, data such as step counts, heart rates and movement patterns are collected and analyzed in real time, helping teachers build personalized fitness profiles for students. The goal is not simply to measure performance, but to better understand each child's physical development.

AI has also changed how students approach creative projects.

Before graduation, sixth-grade students at the school complete a project called "The First Book of My Life", in which they document memorable moments from their primary school years. In the past, students were responsible only for writing, while the layout and design were outsourced. Now, with the help of AI-supported tools, they can create their own e-books, bringing together text, images and design.

Tan Pengfei, the school's principal, said the changes reflect a broader shift in education.

"The abilities developed outside textbooks have become even more valuable today — communication, creativity, curiosity and problem-solving," Tan said. "The role of schools is to awaken and nurture these human qualities that are already present in children."

Tan's comments echoed Banyankimbona's view that the future of education will depend less on whether students can access information and more on whether they can use knowledge with judgment and creativity.

The same shift is also taking place in higher education and scientific research.

At the conference, Luo Jianlan, an associate professor at Shanghai Innovation Institute, discussed AI's role in research and innovation in a keynote speech on embodied intelligence.

Founded in 2024, the institute focuses on cultivating AI talent capable of addressing real-world challenges.

"It trains students to identify real problems, turn them into scientific questions and complete a full cycle of innovation," Luo said.

A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and a former researcher at Google and the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab, Luo said AI has narrowed the gap between basic research and industrial application.

"In the past, translating research into real-world use could take 10 to 20 years," he said. "Today, for example, it took only about seven years for AlphaFold, an AI system that predicts protein structures, to progress from breakthrough research to a Nobel Prize-winning achievement."

Zhang Linfeng, founder and CSO of DP Technology, shared a similar view.

Having long worked in "AI for Science", an interdisciplinary field that uses AI to advance scientific research, Zhang recalled the first time he saw AI's transformative potential in science.

By using neural networks to model atomic interactions, he completed a molecular simulation on a laptop in less than a day — a task that would previously have required 200 million CPU-core hours and millions of dollars.

"That was when I truly understood what AI could bring to scientific advancement," he said. "In the future, when a scientific question arises, AI may be able to interpret it, review the literature, design experiments, carry them out and analyze the results."

But Zhang stressed that this does not mean scientists will be removed from the process. On the contrary, he said, AI will make their ability to ask meaningful questions, evaluate results and decide which problems are worth solving even more important.

He also believes China has distinct advantages in this field, and that was one reason he chose to return to the country after graduating from Princeton University in 2020 to start his company.

"China has a strong industrial and manufacturing foundation, which makes it easier to connect scientific breakthroughs with industrial innovation," he said.

Turning from frontier science back to education, Zhang also reflected on how younger researchers are adapting to the fast-changing age of AI.

He noted that in the past, a PhD student might spend years steadily exploring a single research topic. Today, that path is far less predictable.

"With AI evolving so rapidly, entire fields can change within three to five years," he said.

That makes adaptability increasingly important, Zhang added.

"As AI expands humanity's ability to explore the unknown, even more complex and interesting questions will emerge. That is why soft skills such as defining problems and finding solutions may become more important than expertise in any specific technical domain," he said.