The groundbreaking ceremony of the Taicang campus at the Northwestern Polytechnical University takes place in Taicang, Jiangsu province, on Aug 29. [Photo/taicangdaily.com]

Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, will open a campus in Taicang, Jiangsu province, local media reported on Sept 2.

The Taicang campus of NPU will cover an area of 1,576 mu (about 105 hectares), including a planned construction area of some 943,000 square meters.

According to an earlier announcement, the campus will consist of 10 schools, 17 undergraduate disciplines, 30 postgraduate programs and six post-doctoral workshops.

By June 2021, the campus will house over 3,000 undergraduates and 1,500 postgraduates, as well as 1,000 teachers and other employees. It is expected to become an international higher-learning institute for talents in future-shaping sectors such as aviation, information technology, new materials, and smart manufacturing.

The Taicang campus will share its talent and research resources with local enterprises, contributing to the industrial and economic growth of Taicang, according to Zhang Wei, Party secretary of NPU.

Adjacent to the Taicang campus is Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University as well as many incubation spaces. The new campus will boost Taicang's clustering of innovation and entrepreneurial elements and further the win-win cooperation between Taicang and NPU.

NPU, a national key university, specializes in education and research in the fields of materials, aerospace, navigation, engineering and physics, and is ranked 10th among China's engineering universities.