- From this fall, Beijing schools must provide at least eight hours of teaching AI.
- Education IA will be compulsory for students of primary school in high school.
- This decision comes as China advances in the AI race.
The Chinese capital, Beijing, makes AI education compulsory for students – including primary school students.
From this fall, city schools must provide at least eight hours of AI teaching per academic year, the Community Commission of Beijing said on Friday in a statement. Schools can teach AI as autonomous lessons or integrate them into existing courses such as information sciences and technologies.
As part of the new plan, elementary schoolchildren, generally aged six to twelve, would take practical courses to launch their AI understanding. Those of the college would learn to apply AI in school work and daily life, while high school students Would focus on strengthening the AI applications and innovation, the agency said.
In China, compulsory education consists of six years of primary school, three years of college and three years of high school.
The Commission said that the initiative is supposed to create a “teacher-student” learning model and integrate AI ethics.
Beijing is not the only one to put pressure for AI education in schools. Last year, California adopted a law obliging its education committee to consider literacy of AI in school programs. Reuters reported in September that Italy would begin to test tools fueled by AI in 15 classrooms as part of a wider effort to improve the digital skills of students.
China goes into the AI race
Beijing's decision to make education of the AI compulsory is compulsory while China advances in the AI race, its local startups that attract global attention.
Earlier this year, Startup Ai Deepseek made the headlines after revealing a low -cost reasoning model that rocked the AI industry and the US stock market. The company said that its model competes with the best competitors, such as the O1 of Chatgpt, to a fraction of the cost.
Last week, Alibaba's shares jumped 8% over two days After the company launched its latest Open Source model, which he said used less data than its Deepseek rival.
Other Chinese AI actions, including TencentAlso have seen gains in the midst of the newly announced technology, while the main AI actions based in the United States, such as Nvidia, have undergone losses.
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