AI integration, digital twins revolutionize classroom learning

At Jilin Polytechnic of Water Resources and Electric Engineering, students wearing virtual reality headsets stand before a digital twin of a massive dam. With a flick of their fingers, they unleash a simulated flood — water cascades down the valley, alarms flash, and the pressure feels almost real.

As sensors flicker, an artificial intelligence-powered system scores every decision they make in real time. The feedback is instant: adjust the sluice gate, optimize the discharge curve, try again.

What once took months of on-site training and carried significant safety risks can now be practiced repeatedly in a digital twin environment — a digital replica of a physical object or system.

"Now, students usually practice in digital twin environments before moving to on-site operations. This efficient and cost-effective approach has significantly improved their proficiency, allowing them to master such skills three to four times faster than before," said Liu Dingding, deputy head of the industry-education integration department at Beijing Freedo Technology Co, a digital twin and spatial intelligence company.

Liu's team has helped establish numerous digital twin platforms across sectors such as electric power, water conservancy, transportation and energy. He said that digital twins are rewriting the rules of vocational training, predicting a future where 70 percent of a training program will be virtual and only 30 percent hands-on.

Liu said that with the rise of advanced technologies like digital twins and AI, there will be strong demand for talent in related fields.

"Vocational schools now have a window of opportunity to cultivate professionals such as AI prompt engineers, digital twin scenario designers, and specialists in intelligent equipment maintenance and spatial intelligence applications," he said.

He called on vocational schools to seize these new directions during the transition period by setting up new majors and training programs.

In April, five ministries, including the Ministry of Education, jointly issued the "AI Plus Education" action plan, calling for full integration of intelligent technologies across all aspects of education. In July, the ministry added 27 new vocational majors, including embodied intelligence computing and humanoid robot engineering.

"The policy message is clear — AI integration into vocational education is no longer an 'elective' but a 'required course'," said Zhou Zhemin, director of the Academic Affairs Office at Hunan Industry Polytechnic in Changsha, Hunan province.

Zhou described the impact of AI and other advanced technologies on vocational education as "disruptive", saying they are redefining what vocational institutions should aim for. "In the past, vocational students were trained to be operators who could follow instructions and perform repetitive tasks. But AI is taking over precisely those tasks," he said.

According to a McKinsey & Company report, the rise of generative AI is propelling the era of automation to arrive a decade earlier than anticipated. In China, around 50 percent of work activities are projected to be automated before 2030, and about 200 million workers — equivalent to 30 percent of China's total workforce — will need to reskill or upskill, the report said.

Despite the overwhelming impact of AI, Chinese vocational institutions should not steer students away from it — instead, they should equip students to harness it, Zhou said.

For these institutions, it is imperative to shift focus to cultivating versatile technical talents with hands-on experience, innovation capabilities and AI expertise, he added.