Figure: The Smart Education Artificial Intelligence Open Innovation Platform project was launched in March in Beijing

On March 26th, the scientific and technological innovation 2030 major project "New Generation Artificial Intelligence" - the "Smart Education Artificial Intelligence Open Innovation Platform" project was launched, and the implementation plan demonstration meeting was held in Beijing. The meeting organized expert reviews on the construction of the open innovation platform for AI in smart education, covering aspects such as overall objectives, technical roadmap, organizational management, implementation plan, and safeguard measures. The next steps will focus on accelerating platform construction in aeras such as open sourcing of smart education data and AI capabilities, open solutions, joint development of fundamental software and hardware systems, and fostering an open ecosystem for smart education.

Figure: CTO of TAL Education Group, Tian Mi, speaks on behalf of the project undertaking unit

Tian Mi, CTO of TAL Education Group, extended a warm welcome to the participating experts on behalf of the project undertaking unit, and expressed that the group will fully support the platform construction to ensure the smooth implementation of the project. Leaders of the High-tech Research and Development Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology provided specific requirements for the construction of the national new generation artificial intelligence open innovation platform, the objectives and significance of scientific and technological innovation 2030 major projects, and the management of research and development tasks and funds.

Figure: Expert discussion scene on the implementation plan demonstration

The TAL Education Group project team presented detailed introductions to the implementation plan of the project from five aspects: technical routes, organizational management, task division, implementation plan, and assessment methods. The five project leaders introduced the construction objectives, technical routes, construction progress, time nodes, and assessment indicators of each project respectively. Members of the expert group of the guide to the scientific and technological innovation 2030 major project, including Professor Yanfeng Wang of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Professor Wenjun Wu of Beihang University, and Professor Jianru Xue of Xi'an Jiaotong University, made targeted suggestions on core technical innovations, open source and open development of the platform, ecological construction, as well as project research task decomposition and organization management. The participating experts unanimously agreed that the project implementation plan passed the demonstration.

Figure: Expert discussion scene on the implementation plan demonstration

Since the approval of the Ministry of Science and Technology to build the Smart Education National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Open Innovation Platform in August 2019, the platform, relying on the TAL Education Group and collaborating with universities, has conducted strategic research on key scientific issues in intelligent education, promoting the open source of education scenario data sets, AI models and solutions, and jointly constructing an innovative ecological system with upstream and downstream enterprises to collectively enhance the research and application level of artificial intelligence in the education industry.

During the construction process of more than a year, the Smart Education National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Open Innovation Platform has opened multiple AI capabilities in the fields of vision, speech, NLP, and data mining to the industry. It has provided customized AI solutions for interactive assessment, exercise correction, content production, and teaching management, launched a batch of general technology components such as the "T-Creator contextual interactive teaching courseware creation platform", and initiated nearly a dozen open source education technology projects such as "AI online teaching Chinese pre-trained model TAL-EduBERT." It has open sourced 7 education scenario data sets, including a nearly 600-hour teaching scenario speech data set, one of the largest mixed Chinese-English speech open data sets in the education industry so far. To stimulate industry innovation potential, the Smart Education National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Open Innovation Platform, in collaboration with the Torch High-tech Industry Development Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, jointly held the 5th China Innovation Challenge Smart Education Competition, bringing together technical elites from universities, research institutions, and enterprises to collectively challenge education handwritten formula recognition technology.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, TAL Education Group launched the AI live broadcast cloud classroom solution based on the Smart Education National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Open Innovation Platform, jointly with "Xueersi Online School" and "Xuexi Qiangguo" providing free live broadcast classes for primary and secondary school students nationwide; It also provided free live broadcast platforms and technical support for nearly 600 primary and secondary schools and tens of thousands of educational institutions nationwide, effectively ensuring "no suspension of classes."

With the advancement of the construction of the Smart Education National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Open Innovation Platform, intelligent technology and education scenarios in the education industry are expected to deeply integrate on a larger scale and at a higher level. TAL Education Group hopes to leverage this to unleash the potential of artificial intelligence technology in improving education quality and promoting education equity, achieving a better future for every educator and learner.