Yingyi Ma Speaks With Rest of World About Chinese Universities Prioritizing New Majors in AI

June 22, 2026

Rest of World

Yingyi Ma

Sociology Department

Center for Policy Research

East Asia Program

Artificial Intelligence

China

Education

Government

Rest of World

Yingyi Ma

Chinese universities are cutting foreign language and humanities programs while adding AI-focused majors, a shift driven by both government-directed national education planning and the growing impact of AI translation tools on traditional language careers.

The restructuring reflects a broader global debate about higher education's relevance in an AI-driven world, with China taking a centralized approach to curriculum change while the U.S. relies on a more decentralized, institution-by-institution response.

“[China’s] advantage is speed and scale in cultivating talent in specific fields. The risk is overcorrection and overcrowding: Some fields may be undervalued before their long-term importance is fully understood,” says Yingyi Ma, professor of sociology.

“The U.S. advantage is pluralism. Because the system is decentralized, it allows more experimentation, more institutional diversity and more bottom-up innovation. But the weakness is fragmentation and inequality,” says Ma. “In the AI era, that unevenness becomes a serious national talent problem and a new source of inequality.”

Read more in the Rest of World article, “Chinese universities are cutting language majors to make way for AI.”