# Tsinghua University

> Source: https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/tsinghua_university
> Updated: 2026-07-30
> Fact-checked: 2026-07-30
> Categories: Chinese AI, Research Organizations, Universities
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> Cite as: AI Wiki. "Tsinghua University." aiwiki.ai, 30 Jul 2026. https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/tsinghua_university
> From AI Wiki (https://aiwiki.ai), the free encyclopedia of artificial intelligence. Reuse freely with attribution.

**Tsinghua University** (清华大学, THU) is a state-founded, nonprofit public research university in Haidian District, Beijing. It is one of the universities directly administered by China's Ministry of Education.[1][2] Tsinghua is a comprehensive university, not an artificial intelligence company or a single AI laboratory. Its work in [artificial intelligence](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/artificial_intelligence) is distributed across academic departments, colleges, institutes, and research groups.

This article reports mutable institutional facts through July 28, 2026, Bangkok time. It distinguishes the university from independent organizations and companies whose founders, researchers, or projects have Tsinghua connections.

## Identity, governance, and scale

The current university charter identifies Tsinghua as a state-founded higher education institution and an independent nonprofit public-institution legal person. Its legal address is Tsinghua Garden in Haidian District. The same charter states that the university operates under a president-responsibility system led by the CPC Tsinghua University Committee.[2] As of the research cutoff, the university's administrators page listed Qiu Yong as secretary of that committee and Li Luming as president. An official message for Tsinghua's 115th anniversary in 2026 also carried both names and titles.[3][4]

The university's published statistics are snapshots rather than permanent attributes:

| Measure | Reported value | Effective date |
| --- | ---: | --- |
| Schools | 33 | December 31, 2025 |
| Departments | 54 | December 31, 2025 |
| Faculty and staff | 17,382 | December 31, 2025 |
| Postdoctoral researchers | 3,454 | December 31, 2025 |
| Registered students | 63,132 | December 31, 2025 |
| Undergraduates | 16,526 | December 31, 2025 |
| Postgraduates, including part-time students | 21,752 | December 31, 2025 |
| Doctoral candidates | 24,854 | December 31, 2025 |

These figures come from the university's Facts and Figures page. The three student categories sum to its reported registered-student total.[5]

Tsinghua's 2025 departmental budget projected current-year income of RMB 29.156 billion and expenditure of RMB 32.154 billion. The expenditure figure is not a revenue figure: the budget also used prior-year carryover and a small amount of non-fiscal appropriation balance. The budget separately reported RMB 5.490 billion in fiscal-appropriation expenditure.[6]

Tsinghua is included in the second-round national "Double First-Class" program announced in 2022. The Ministry of Education notice says that Tsinghua and Peking University determine and publish their own construction disciplines, so the designation should not be converted into an unofficial subject list.[9]

## History

Tsinghua dates its establishment to 1911, when the school opened as Tsing Hua Imperial College. It was renamed Tsing Hua College in 1912, added a university section in 1925, and adopted the name National Tsing Hua University in 1928.[7] An official history from Tsinghua's School of Humanities and Social Sciences describes the original institution as a preparatory school for study in the United States, funded with part of the Gengzi, or Boxer, indemnity returned by the United States.[8] United States diplomatic records document the 1908 remission and later refer to Tsing Hua College as the "Indemnity College" supported by the remitted funds.[10][11]

After war began in 1937, Tsinghua joined National Peking University and Nankai University in Changsha. The combined institution moved to Kunming in 1938 and became National Southwest Associated University. Tsinghua returned to its Beijing campus in 1946.[7]

In the nationwide reorganization of higher education in 1952, Tsinghua became a multidisciplinary polytechnic university centered on engineering. It broadened again after 1978, rebuilding or adding programs in science, economics, management, the humanities, law, medicine, and other fields. Later institutional changes included the 1999 merger with the Central Academy of Arts and Design and the 2012 merger of the Graduate School of the People's Bank of China into Tsinghua.[7]

## Computing and AI organization

Tsinghua established a computer major in 1956. Computer science was part of the Department of Automatic Control from 1958, became the Department of Computer Engineering and Science in 1979, and took its current Department of Computer Science and Technology name in 1984.[12] The department is one part of the university's broader computing and AI structure.

| Unit | Institutional scope | Established or reorganized |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Department of Computer Science and Technology | Academic department with teaching and research responsibilities | Computer major in 1956; current department name in 1984[12] |
| Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS) | University institute spanning computer science, quantum information, and AI | 2011[13] |
| Yao Class | Undergraduate program within IIIS; current tracks cover computer science, AI, and quantum information | Founded by Andrew Yao in 2005[14] |
| Institute for Artificial Intelligence | University research institute intended to coordinate basic and cross-disciplinary AI work | June 2018[15] |
| Institute for AI International Governance | University institute focused on governance and policy research | June 2020[15] |
| Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR) | University research institute oriented toward applied research and industry collaboration | December 1, 2020[15][16] |
| College of AI | Academic college focused on AI foundations and cross-disciplinary applications | April 27, 2024[17] |

These units have different mandates. IIIS combines education and research across several information-science fields, while Yao Class is a program within it.[13][14] AIR describes itself as an applied research institute and identifies AI for transportation, the internet of things, and health care among its priorities.[16] The College of AI describes two broad directions, "AI core" and "AI+," and uses a rotation system before students settle on research groups.[17] None of these descriptions makes every Tsinghua AI project an output of one central laboratory.

Research groups are narrower still. The Knowledge Engineering Group (KEG) is a group in the Department of Computer Science and Technology whose public history dates to 1996.[18] TsinghuaNLP, also known as THUNLP, is a department-based natural-language-processing and computational social science laboratory.[19] Project papers may list these groups, other university teams, and outside organizations together. Their coauthorship should be preserved rather than collapsed into a university-wide product claim.

In 2023, the Institute for Artificial Intelligence launched a Foundation Model Research Center. The university announcement describes the center as a Tsinghua unit and also records participation by representatives of the computer science department, government, and Zhipu.[20] Participation in that event does not make Zhipu a unit of the center or of the university.

## Selected peer-reviewed work

Tsinghua-affiliated teams have contributed models, datasets, and evaluation methods, but the author and sponsor lists matter:

- **GLM-130B.** The ICLR 2023 paper presents a bilingual English-Chinese model with 130 billion parameters, trained on more than 400 billion tokens. Its contribution statement attributes the project to KEG, the PACMAN systems group, and THUNLP at Tsinghua, together with Zhipu. It identifies Zhipu as the GPU sponsor. GLM-130B is therefore a documented university-company collaboration, not evidence that Tsinghua operated every later GLM or ChatGLM release.[21]

- **LongBench.** The ACL 2024 paper introduced a bilingual long-context benchmark with 21 datasets across six task categories. Its author affiliations include Tsinghua, Zhipu, and the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. LongBench is an evaluation dataset and methodology, not a model or commercial service.[22]

- **AgentBench.** The ICLR 2024 paper introduced eight interactive environments and evaluated 29 API-based and open-source language models as agents. Its authors were affiliated with Tsinghua, Ohio State University, and the University of California, Berkeley. The work reported limitations in long-horizon reasoning, decision-making, and instruction following; it did not establish a universal ranking of institutions or models.[23]

These examples are selected because their publication records identify contributors, affiliations, and evaluation scope. They do not stand for all AI research at Tsinghua.

## Boundaries with outside organizations and companies

| Entity or label | Verified relationship to Tsinghua | What should not be inferred |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI) | A separate research institution established in November 2018. Beijing government records say the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and Haidian District launched it.[24][25] | Work by Tsinghua faculty at BAAI, including the Wu Dao program, is not automatically a Tsinghua University project. |
| Zhipu, also known as Z.ai | An independent company founded in June 2019 by a team with academic roots at Tsinghua. Its Hong Kong prospectus describes an ongoing research partnership with KEG.[26] | Academic roots, coauthorship, or collaboration do not make Zhipu a university unit or make all Zhipu models university releases. |
| GLM-130B | A specific ICLR 2023 collaboration among named Tsinghua groups and Zhipu.[21] | The paper does not transfer ownership of the later GLM and ChatGLM product families to Tsinghua. |
| Alumni-founded companies | Alumni may found, lead, invest in, or work for companies after leaving the university. | An alumni tie is not evidence of university control, funding, ownership, or technical authorship. |

The distinction is material. Zhipu's prospectus calls the company an AI company, gives its own corporate history, and describes KEG as a continuing partner.[26] It does not describe Zhipu as a department, subsidiary, or laboratory of Tsinghua. Likewise, BAAI's own profile calls it a separate institution, and the Beijing government describes its municipal and district launch.[24][25]

Claims that a fixed percentage of China's AI founders came from Tsinghua depend on how "founder," "AI company," and "Tsinghua tie" are defined. No reproducible primary dataset was found for the percentage previously stated on this page. The same problem applies to labels such as "single largest talent engine." Such claims are excluded here rather than converted into institutional facts.

## Interpretation and evidence limits

University and subject rankings change with the provider, year, inputs, and weighting method. This article therefore records the dated government program designation in the official notice but does not present a commercial ranking as a stable property of Tsinghua.[9]

Leadership, enrollment, staffing, and budget figures are dated to their source periods. Lab membership, faculty roles, corporate ties, and research-center structures can change independently of the university's legal identity. Statements about politically sensitive matters, including export controls or ended collaborations, require a named action, affected legal entity, date, and primary record. Vague claims about unnamed laboratories or partners are not retained.

## See also

- [Artificial intelligence](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/artificial_intelligence)
- [China AI](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/china_ai)
- [Andrew Yao](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/andrew_yao)
- [Zhipu AI](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/zhipu_ai)
- [Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/baai)

## References

1. Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. "Subordinate Universities." https://en.moe.gov.cn/subordinate_universities/
2. Tsinghua University. "Tsinghua University Charter," amended December 2023 and published January 15, 2024. https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/__local/7/C1/9D/EDEBE103A9F77575927C44D5BD7_7BBDBA09_AD58A.pdf
3. Tsinghua University. "Current Administrators." https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/About/Current_Administrators.htm
4. Tsinghua University. "Striving with Self-Discipline, Embarking on a New Journey: Message for Tsinghua University's 115th Anniversary." 2026. https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/info/1245/14785.htm
5. Tsinghua University. "Facts and Figures," data through December 31, 2025. https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/About/Facts_and_Figures.htm
6. Tsinghua University. "Tsinghua University 2025 Departmental Budget." April 18, 2025. https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/__local/4/CE/D9/1D5CCA339C64A8CC1B89FDA33FA_7F6DD4F6_90319.pdf
7. Tsinghua University. "History." https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/About/History.htm
8. Tsinghua University School of Humanities and Social Sciences. "History." https://www.rwxy.tsinghua.edu.cn/shssen/About/History.htm
9. Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, and National Development and Reform Commission. "Notice on the Second-Round Double First-Class Construction Universities and Disciplines." February 14, 2022. https://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A22/s7065/202202/t20220211_598710.html
10. United States Department of State, Office of the Historian. "The Secretary of State to the Chinese Minister," December 31, 1908. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1908/d64
11. United States Department of State, Office of the Historian. "The Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Treasury," August 14, 1929. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1929v02/d889
12. Tsinghua University Department of Computer Science and Technology. "Introduction." https://www.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/csen/About/Introduction.htm
13. Tsinghua University Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences. "Introduction." https://iiis.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/About/Introduction.htm
14. Tsinghua University Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences. "About Yao Class." https://iiis.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/Yao_Class/About_Yao_Class.htm
15. Tsinghua University Institute for AI Industry Research. "AIR Establishment and Contract Signing Ceremony Was Held." February 6, 2021. https://air.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/info/1007/1256.htm
16. Tsinghua University Institute for AI Industry Research. "About AIR." https://air.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/About_Us/About_AIR.htm
17. Tsinghua University College of AI. "Introduction." https://collegeai.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/About_Us/Introduction.htm
18. Tsinghua University Knowledge Engineering Group. "Introduction." https://keg.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/
19. Tsinghua University Natural Language Processing and Computational Social Science Laboratory. "Group Introduction." https://nlp.csai.tsinghua.edu.cn/
20. Tsinghua University. "Tsinghua Launches Foundation Model Research Center." 2023. https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/info/1245/12315.htm
21. Zeng, Aohan, et al. "GLM-130B: An Open Bilingual Pre-trained Model." International Conference on Learning Representations, 2023. https://openreview.net/forum?id=-Aw0rrrPUF
22. Bai, Yushi, et al. "LongBench: A Bilingual, Multitask Benchmark for Long Context Understanding." Proceedings of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 2024. https://aclanthology.org/2024.acl-long.172/
23. Liu, Xiao, et al. "AgentBench: Evaluating LLMs as Agents." International Conference on Learning Representations, 2024. https://proceedings.iclr.cc/paper_files/paper/2024/hash/e9df36b21ff4ee211a8b71ee8b7e9f57-Abstract-Conference.html
24. Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence. "About Us." https://www.baai.ac.cn/en/about-us
25. Beijing Municipal Government. "Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence to Entrench Beijing as the World's Leading Artificial Intelligence Innovation Center." November 29, 2021. https://english.beijing.gov.cn/beijinginfo/sci/latesttrend/latesttrendlist/202111/t20211129_2547302.html
26. Knowledge Atlas Technology Joint Stock Company Limited. "Global Offering Prospectus." December 30, 2025. https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2025/1230/2025123000017.pdf