Universities across China are embracing artificial intelligence (AI) assistants powered by the Chinese-built DeepSeek-R1, offering 24/7 support to address students' learning and campus life queries while enhancing academic efficiency.
China's open-source AI model, DeepSeek-R1, developed by DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company founded in 2023, has garnered global attention since its launch at the beginning of the year, due to its exceptional performance and low development costs.
Many universities in China have quickly adopted the model, bringing transformative changes to teaching, research, and student life.
For instance, Renmin University of China in Beijing has integrated DeepSeek's model into its self-developed platform for teaching, research, and administration at the start of the semester. Supported by the university's computing resources, DeepSeek has become an indispensable AI assistant for faculty.
"We are using DeepSeek to train large models for various majors across different schools. In the future, this model will serve as a foundation for academic research, enhancing capabilities in research, teaching, and production," said Gong Xinqi, director of the Bigdata and Responsible AI for National Governance at the university.
Some faculty members and students are also feeding course materials and research data into the model, developing specialized databases. For example, the university's School of Mathematics has created an AI teaching assistant to help students with academic problems.
"With this 24/7 AI assistant, we can input math content into the system. When we have common questions, we don't need to ask the teacher anymore, which has greatly reduced communication costs," said Zhao Guangkai, a student at Renmin University.
The integration of DeepSeek has also extended beyond teaching to enhance campus life. Students can now consult the AI assistant for various campus-related inquiries, with more than 1,300 types of services now covered in the AI system.
At Nankai University in Tianjin, faculty and students can create their own AI applications on a platform that already supports a dozen of large models. More than 8,000 intelligent agents have been developed, offering services ranging from campus event updates to research support.
The university's School of Literature has developed a "Smart Learning Companion" application, providing a portable Literature teacher for students.
"We leverage Nankai University's extensive literature teaching materials to train the AI, using 635 different types of data. When students ask the companion for help, it responds based on our trained materials and can forward the conversation to teachers for corrections, which are then fed back into the AI for further learning," said Feng Dajian, associate dean of the School of Literature at Nankai University.
DeepSeek-powered AI assistants revolutionize teaching, research, campus life in Chinese universities
