Tsinghua University’s AI Push: Patents, Startups and China’s Expanding Talent Pipeline
Tsinghua University in northwest Beijing has emerged as a core hub for China’s AI strategy, with government backing, homegrown chips, and startups like DeepSeek founded by its alumni. Between 2005 and the end of 2024, the university filed 4,986 AI and machine learning patents, while students developed models that reportedly rivaled larger systems from US labs. China has expanded AI education from elementary school onward and dramatically increased its share of the world’s top AI researchers, even as US institutions still lead in the most influential patents and top-performing models.