The Center for Applied Mathematics at Tianjin University hosts about thirty postgraduates and doctors and nearly ten teachers from different disciplines, such as mathematics and computer science with different research directions. They work together to contribute to the development of artificial intelligence through multidisciplinary integration. TJU cooperates with famous companies such as Huawei to do scientific research and foster talent. Now the first batch of students have graduated.

There are many more such platforms at Tianjin University. Not only are they cross disciplinary and training platforms, but also technology research and development platforms, providing intellectual support for the development of intelligent manufacturing industry in Tianjin as well as the country at large. With the development of a “Double World-class” university and national demand for intelligent manufacturing, Tianjin University has organized the engineering disciplines such as mechanics, measurement and automation to develop a world-class platform for "intelligent manufacturing".

Recently, Tianjin held the World Intelligence Congress (WIC2017) to foster "intelligent" innovation systems and accelerating the building of the "Tianjin Intelligent Port". It’s a big challenge for TJU to lead with knowledge innovation and continuously provide intelligent support for the construction of the "Tianjin Intelligent Port".

At present, the "TJU super brain project" is being implemented, which takes the human brain as the core, the computer-brain as the path and cloud computing brain as the hub. The combination of three ‘brains’ is committed to developing future brain-computer interface technology into reliable technology for the next generation of human-computer interaction, communication and human-computer hybrid intelligence. At the same time, Tianjin University began the construction of the UAV interdisciplinary platform from 2016. As a result, the University plans to make breakthroughs in the machine learning, image recognition, operational optimization, environmental awareness, vehicle brain, network security, intelligent roads and other key technologies in the next two years, and then achieve industrial applications for the technology as soon as possible.

Professor Wu Ou, of the Center for Applied Mathematics at Tianjin University said, that the center had made good progress in face recognition, front panoramic technology, text mining technology and other areas. In addition, the School of Computer Science and Technology and the School of Computer Software has made progress in the fields of machine learning, data mining and pattern recognition. These achievements provided an algorithmic basis for Internet + health services, and for advanced intelligent grids, intelligent cities, intelligent medical, unmanned driving and other projects such as the project of advanced Marine observation with Tianjin University’s underwater glider “Petrel”. It can also be applied on a large scale to improve people's livelihood, health care, national defense and other important areas. In the field of basic research and engineering promotion and application, Tianjin University has also formed a complete set of data and intelligence research, applications and service systems.

Zhong Denghua, President of Tianjin University and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that Tianjin University should focus on the academic forefront, meet challenges positively and try to gain international influence. Such technology achievements as robot technology research, underwater and medical robots and parallel mechanisms used in manufacturing industry have won awards such as National Technology Invention Award. At the same time, Tianjin University should also focus on the major needs of Tianjin and the country, and organize joint research among TJU’s major and dominant disciplines in the fields of intelligent manufacturing equipment, intelligent computer numerical control, advanced measurement technology, intelligent control technology and other areas to contribute to Tianjin’s construction of a national advanced manufacturing R&D base, promote the transformation of Tianjin from “Tianjin manufacturing" to "Tianjin’s intelligent manufacturing” and make contributions to the national high-end manufacturing industry.

While the platform is an important carrier, talent is the foundation and guarantee of innovation. Under the new wave of science and technology, many top universities in the world have set up specialized courses. President Zhong Denghua believes that new industries and formats such as the emerging mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, networking, intelligent manufacturing, cloud hospitals, intelligent security systems are emerging in the era of intelligent development are facing the problem of talent shortage. He said: "We must accelerate the development of new majors, reinvigorate traditional engineering specialties".

With that in mind, the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China put forward the concept of "innovative engineering" for the first time in June 2016. In April 2017, the Innovative Engineering Education Conference for Leading Engineering Universities was held at Tianjin University. The conference issued the "Tianjin University action plan" for the development of innovative engineering. Innovative engineering construction is a talent training strategy which focuses on national development strategy, supporting and serving the development of momentum conversion as well as industrial transformation and upgrading.

In this regard, Professor Ming Dong of the biomedical engineering disciplines and Director of the Institute of Medical Engineering & Translational Medicine at Tianjin University, said: “The development of artificial intelligence, based on cross-disciplinary integration characterized by "innovative engineering", is expected to create new growth points for disciplines, which now foster interdisciplinary talent training. Tianjin University is currently actively preparing for the application of an ‘innovative engineering’ major in medical artificial intelligence. Through this, the University, leading with “intelligent medical treatment” and at the frontier technology of brain science and artificial intelligence, hoped to train medical-engineering top innovative talent for large comprehensive hospitals, universities, research institutions, high-tech medical companies with the great need for an “intelligent medical system” and with advanced brain technologies and artificial intelligence technologies.

 Editors: Yin Shiyu and Ross Colquhoun