China's NetDragon bets on AI to reshape global education with '3E' model

Chinese gaming and education company NetDragon Websoft is sharpening its bet on artificial intelligence to drive growth in the global education market, unveiling new products and partnerships at the 2025 Global Smart Education Conference in Beijing.

The company, best known for building both online learning platforms and gaming franchises, said it is positioning AI as the core of its education strategy, with a vision it calls "3E education" – learning that is effective, efficient and engaging.

Appearing as a digital avatar at the conference, Liu Dejian, chairman of NetDragon, said that the future of education must focus on individual learner.

"Education should be personalized, immersive and game-like. The right design – from gamified interfaces to simulated environments – is critical to motivating students and improving outcomes," he said.

Liu Dejian, chairman of NetDragon, appears as a digital avatar at the 2025 Global Smart Education Conference in Beijing.

The conference, which opened on Monday, gathered more than 500 experts from education, technology and business sectors worldwide and attracted over 2,200 participants. NetDragon marked its 10th consecutive year at the event, underlining its ambition to become a leading global player in smart education.

To scale up production of digital learning content, NetDragon has developed an AI production center, which it said combines expert systems with AI "nodes" to generate high-quality, multilingual materials at a fraction of traditional costs.

The company estimates that marginal production costs could be cut to a few hundred yuan, while production time for individual lessons could fall to under one hour.