The Ministry of Education announced the 2022 Outstanding Achievement Award for Research in Institutes of Higher Education (Science and Technology) on July 12th. Wen Jirong, Zhao Xin, Dou Zhicheng, Xu Jun and Song Ruihua from the Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence of Renmin University of China (RUC), alongside Li Xiaoming from Peking University, won first prize with their project “Key Theories and Technologies in User-Centered Internet Information Acquisition”.
The project conducted in-depth research surrounding internet information acquisition, a cutting-edge topic in the field of artificial intelligence. Focusing on key issues such as user data semantic complexity, user demand complexity and supply-demand matching complexity, it established a well-rounded system of theories and technologies in user-based internet information understanding and acquisition.
The Outstanding Achievement Award for Research in Institutes of Higher Education (Science and Technology) is set up by the Ministry of Education to encourage individuals and institutions that made significant contributions to the progress of science and technology. Receiving this award is not only an approbation for RUC’s capabilities in computer science research but also a clear manifestation of RUC’s remarkable achievements in computer science in the past ten years.
At this year’s Science and Technology Culture Festival, RUC announced the “Ten Major Achievements in Ten Years”, among which was “computer science witnessed leaping development, building a ‘data-centric’ independent knowledge system”. Computer science made two leaps forward, entering the rank of strong subjects.
Under the pioneering and continuous leadership of senior scholars such as Sa Shixuan and Wang Shan, computer science and technology at RUC established the earliest talent cultivation and scientific research system in databases in China. In response to digital economy and other national strategies, computer science at RUC endeavors to establish a “data-centric” independent knowledge system, making itself a distinctive computer science discipline in the areas of databases, big data, and artificial intelligence.
I. Focusing on Independent Intellectual Property Research of Database Systems, Achieving Breakthroughs in National Awards
The database team at RUC adheres to the needs of major national strategies and the national economy. Focusing on “bottleneck” technologies in domestic databases, the team has long undertaken major national projects, such as the National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program), the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China. Its key technologies of database systems have been widely applied in over 60 industries crucial to the national economy and people’s livelihoods, ranking first in sales in the market of information technology application innovation. In 2018, Professor Du Xiaoyong’s team achieved a significant breakthrough by winning the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award for their project “The Innovation of DBMS Core Techniques and Commercialization of KingbaseES”. This marked the first national-level scientific and technological award for RUC. In 2020, the database team collaborated with Tencent to establish a collaborative innovation laboratory. Their joint research achievement “TDSQL: A Financial-Level Distributed Database” received the first prize of the 2022 Shenzhen Science and Technology Progress Award.
II. Taking on the Responsibility of Establishing a “Data-Centric” Independent Knowledge System and Accelerating the Construction of an Innovative Talent Cultivation System
The computer science discipline authored the first domestic textbook An Introduction to Database System, with cumulative sales of over 3.8 million copies. The textbook has made outstanding contributions to nurturing generations of talented individuals in the field of databases and was granted the inaugural National Outstanding Textbook Award. The discipline has also taken the lead in building virtual teaching and research laboratories for databases and designing the 101 Database System Courses. Its database courses figure among the first batch of national-level first-rate courses. Moreover, the discipline proposed the establishment of a “data-centric” independent knowledge system and talent cultivation system. As a result, students have excelled in academic competitions, and the establishment of the Turing Experimental Class was successfully included in the third batch of the Bases of Top-Notch Student Training Program in Basic Disciplines 2.0 issued by the Ministry of Education in November 2021. The teaching and research outcome “Data-Centric Talent Cultivation in Computer Science-The Educational Reform Practices of the Turing Experimental Class” was awarded the first prize of the Beijing Higher Education Teaching Achievements.
III. Striding Forward with the Times, Establishing the Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence
As a crucial component of computer science, artificial intelligence at RUC benchmarks itself against the standards of top universities and top disciplines worldwide, adhering to the principles of “high starting point, high level, global orientation, and innovation” in its high-speed development. According to CSRankings, RUC ranks among the top institutions in the field of artificial intelligence and has secured the world’s first place for two consecutive years in the area of information retrieval. The development of the first large-scale Chinese multimodal pre-training model, “WenLan” has had a widespread impact. In September 2022, the “New Generation Intelligent Search and Recommendation” Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education was approved, further supporting the exploration and implementation of next-generation search and recommendation system technologies. This will provide platform support to achieve independent intellectual property rights, overcome technological bottlenecks, and facilitate significant advancements in relevant fields.
