Revised majors catalog tries to address a key issue of AI era

The recent release of China's 2026 catalog of undergraduate majors by the Ministry of Education shows the country is trying to redesign the talent pipeline between education, industry and national development.

The catalog puts emphasis on interdisciplinary fields: embodied intelligence, brain-computer science and technology, future robotics and interdisciplinary engineering. These are attempts to answer the defining question of the AI era: How to train people for the future?

Artificial intelligence, automation, biotech and clean energy are making some old majors redundant. Universities everywhere now face the same uncomfortable truth: teaching yesterday's knowledge and skills prepares students for yesterday's jobs.