Lingnan University revamps liberal arts curriculum for AI era
Lingnan University in Hong Kong is reshaping its liberal arts education to include AI, data science and digital literacy, according to president Joe Qin Sizhao. The university has launched a high-performance computing centre, new interdisciplinary programmes, and recruited about 40 scholars, contrib
Lingnan University is pioneering a new model of liberal arts education for the age of emerging technologies, with president Joe Qin Sizhao saying students need to develop not only traditional humanities skills but also scientific, digital and artificial intelligence literacy.
Qin, a data scientist who became Lingnan’s president in 2023, said that as AI becomes increasingly embedded in education, research and everyday life, liberal arts education must be widened. He has pushed the university to embrace AI over the past three years, from building computing infrastructure and providing free ChatGPT access to students, to integrating AI into different academic disciplines and developing AI-related courses.
“Once students are allowed to use AI, the examinations and assignments should be redesigned, including assignments with no standard answers; and there should be AI-assisted platforms for tutors to prepare lessons and tutorials,” he said. To support its AI development, the first phase of a High-Performance Computing Data Centre was put into operation in 2025, providing about 6,000 trillion floating-point operations per second of computing power.
To build a liberal arts education that integrates the humanities and sciences for the digital age, Qin said traditional humanities, social sciences and business disciplines must evolve and expand, while science and engineering-related fields also need to be developed, with a focus on integration. The Wu Jieh Yee School of Interdisciplinary Studies offers three interdisciplinary undergraduate programmes and funds to encourage students to do interdisciplinary research with AI and data science.
Lingnan rose 300 places in the 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities, marking the biggest improvement among Hong Kong’s eight UGC-funded universities and placing it sixth among them. It also rose more than 120 places to 581st in the QS World University Rankings 2027, as well as rising nearly 100 places to 257th in THE World University Rankings 2027. Qin attributed the progress to improvements in research capacity and the recruitment of high-level scholars.
Qin said the university’s interdisciplinary “PureAura – the Portable Mini Energy-saving Air Purifier” project, designed for families in Hong Kong’s subdivided flats, won 14 international design awards, including the iF Gold Award and the Red Dot Design Award. Lingnan launched the Lingnan-60 Global Talent Recruitment initiative in 2024 to recruit scholars across disciplines; so far, about 40 scholars have been recruited, filling around two-thirds of the target.
Lingnan University is eyeing the Northern Metropolis as a key site for future expansion, with Qin highlighting the potential for boosting education and research capacity in Hung Shui Kiu. Qin said the university aims to help build a vibrant cultural and technology community there by attracting talent and enhancing educational and cultural facilities, rather than treating Hung Shui Kiu as merely an expansion site. “We can make use of the new space in the Northern Metropolis to focus on industry-academia-research collaboration, particularly in research and postgraduate education,” he said.