Boom! Another shift.

Universities are entering their most profound transformation in centuries. Artificial intelligence is changing not just how students learn, but what universities exist to do.

Gavin Allen
Executive Editor-in-Chief
Huawei Technologies

Despite their different backgrounds, the academics featured in this edition of Transform agree on one point: AI is no longer optional. The institutions that embrace it thoughtfully will be the ones that flourish.

Or as Professor Address Malata, the first woman to serve as vice-chancellor of a public university in Malawi, memorably put it to me, inspiring this edition’s cover: “Then AI came: Boom! Another shift.”

Professor Soumitra Dutta, a former Dean of multiple prestigious business schools, welcomes that shift, insisting “an elite research metric” had for too long been allowed to divert the university ethos.

“These institutions should rewire their DNA so they can change the lives of more young people, starting with the role of the professor. Is a professor even required?” he asks.

It’s time, he says, for a fundamental rethink. “For the teaching mission, the answer is AI. We need people who show empathy and act as counselors who build character, social development, and creative thinking.”

It’s a view echoed by Dr. Paul Kim, former CTO at Stanford Graduate School of Education, who divides educational history into B.G. — Before GenAI — and A.G. — After GenAI.

“The B.G. university prepared students for jobs that already existed. The A.G. university must prepare them to create their own jobs and invent professions that do not yet exist,” he told me.

Lifelong learning would become a core proposition, he predicted, with “deep mentorship between younger and older minds” and traditional departments dissolved in favor of problem-centered studios.

“The right question is not “did the student use AI?” but “did the student develop the capacities we promised to develop?” In the A.G. era, the finished artifact becomes cheap; the thinking behind it is what matters.”

I've witnessed that transition from another perspective, as Huawei has evolved from building smart campuses to providing the AI computing infrastructure that universities increasingly rely on.

From Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Zhiyuan-1 intelligent computing platform to the AI Practice Lab at Beijing Institute of Technology and Shenzhen Polytechnic University's Artificial Intelligence Root Technology Industry College, universities are embedding AI not simply into computer science programs but across research, teaching, and workforce development.

These initiatives point toward a future in which AI is woven into the fabric of higher education rather than treated as a separate discipline. In the AI era, the goal of education is not to replicate more people who know the answers, but to cultivate people who can ask better questions, solve problems, and continue learning throughout their lives.

As this edition of Transform makes clear, Dr. Kim’s A.G. era is no longer a prediction. It is already taking shape.