Industry-Education Integration for the Future: Hefei University of Economics and Huawei Jointly Build a Cradle for ICT Talent

As the "AI+" initiative is deeply implemented, deepening the industry-education integration to cultivate high-quality, application-oriented talent that meets industrial development needs has become a crucial link in driving the growth of new quality productive forces. The Anhui Digital Economy Talent Cultivation Plan (2024–2027) proposes vigorously implementing the talent-driven Anhui strategy, leveraging the foundational support of skilled digital technology professionals for the digital economy, enhancing the alignment of digital talent scale, quality, and structure with the demands of digital economic industrial development, and advancing the transformation from "Made in Anhui" to "Smart Manufacturing in Anhui." As the nation's first pilot city for scientific and technological innovation, Hefei is fully striving to build an "innovation source" for AI. The regional demand for ICT talent equipped with cutting-edge technologies continues to surge, pointing a clear direction for the transformation and development of local universities.

Hefei University of Economics is a full-time undergraduate institution approved by the Ministry of Education. Formerly known as the School of Economics and Technology of Anhui Agricultural University, it completed its transition and renaming in 2020. Currently, it is an authorized bachelor's degree granting unit in Anhui Province and a project construction unit for master's degree authorization. The university operates across three campuses—Higher Education Base, Xinqiao, and University Town—covering a total area of over 1,200 mu (about 80 hectares or 197 acres) with a building area exceeding 400,000 square meters. It comprises 9 secondary colleges and offers 48 undergraduate programs spanning 7 major academic disciplines, including economics, management, and engineering, supported by 5 provincial first-class programs and 12 key construction programs. Facing the accelerated rise of the Yangtze River Delta's digital economy and regional shortages of AI talent, Hefei University of Economics has partnered with Huawei to jointly build a modern AI industry college. Supported by open, leading ecosystems of foundational technologies such as Atlas, TaiShan, and HarmonyOS, the initiative aims to construct a new industry-education integration ecosystem characterized by "joint course construction, collaborative practical training, shared talent cultivation, and mutual promotion of employment."

Digital & Intelligent Needs in Talent Cultivation for Application-Oriented Universities

In the process of promoting the deep integration of educational digitalization and industrial intelligence, Hefei University of Economics has anchored its efforts in cultivating application-oriented talent. Confronting the challenge of bridging talent cultivation with industrial development, the university has put forward clear demands across four key dimensions: curriculum, practical training environment, faculty development, and employment alignment, urgently needing to break through development bottlenecks through deep school-enterprise cooperation.

The curriculum must mirror industrial technological evolution: Traditional curricula lean heavily toward theoretical instruction, creating a disconnect with technological advancements and industrial applications in the AI domain. The university urgently needs to integrate cutting-edge technologies like Huawei's HarmonyOS and Atlas into professional instruction, enabling students to engage with real-world industry projects and technical standards while still on campus, thereby enhancing the alignment between talent cultivation and industrial demand.

The training platform must benchmark against enterprise-grade development environments: The university faces a shortage of existing experimental and training labs and lacks hands-on environments that align with industry standards, making it difficult to meet the demands of cultivating students' practical abilities. There is an urgent need to leverage Huawei's technological resources to build a practical training platform that integrates teaching, practical training, competitions, and certification, providing hardware equipment and project scenarios consistent with those used in enterprises.

Dual-qualified faculty capacity needs strengthening: The shortage of "dual-qualified" faculty is a common challenge for application-oriented universities. While on-campus instructors possess solid theoretical foundations, they lack hands-on experience in industrial projects. The university urgently needs to partner with Huawei to establish a mixed teaching team, cultivating "dual-qualified" teachers equipped with both instructional proficiency and industrial experience, ensuring that teaching content resonates synchronously with industrial development.

Employment placement needs to open direct channels to ecosystem enterprises: Although graduates possess theoretical foundations, they struggle to precisely match the job requirements of tech enterprises during their job hunts due to a lack of industry certifications and practical experience. The university urgently needs to build a school-enterprise talent matching platform, enabling students to gain competitive advantages in employment through Huawei certifications and precisely match positions of enterprises in Huawei's ecosystem as well as regional digital economy industries.

Huawei's Full-Stack Technology Empowers a "Four-Dimensional Upgrade"
Reshaping the University's AI & ICT Talent Cultivation System

Facing the systemic challenge of aligning talent cultivation with industrial demands, Hefei University of Economics and Huawei have jointly launched a "full-chain, deep-level, and ecosystem-based" collaboration spanning courses, platforms, faculty, and employment. Using the modern AI industry college as the physical carrier, the two parties have co-designed and implemented a "four-in-one" innovation system for industry-education integration.

Restructuring the Teaching Paradigm with an "Industry Topic Library"

The two parties have jointly transformed Huawei's technological accumulations and industry cases in fields such as AI and OS into teaching resources, embedding them into professional curricula for majors like finance, intelligent manufacturing, and information engineering. This forms a "three-in-one" professional group construction paradigm featuring curriculum, practical scenarios, and certification standard. The undergraduate graduation thesis and design stage specially establishes a topic selection pool guided by "industry orientation + technological empowerment," recommending real-world projects such as "industrial quality inspection algorithm optimization based on Atlas AI," and implements a dual-mentor system consisting of "on-campus mentors + Huawei engineers," ensuring that students complete the innovation closed-loop within a real technological ecosystem.

Creating an Integrated Platform for Teaching, Competition, and Certification

Leveraging the Huawei Talent Training Platform, the university has established an open, shared industry-education integration base covering 5 technical fields including AI development, HarmonyOS applications, and big data analysis. Equipped with authentic Huawei-manufactured hardware such as Atlas AI servers and TaiShan servers, the base features 4 high-level training rooms and a digital sci-tech exhibition hall. Students can participate in full-lifecycle simulations of enterprise-grade AI projects and operate industrial-grade toolchains, bridging the gap between theory and hands-on practice. Training content seamlessly align with Huawei micro-certifications and HCIA standards to enhance students' competitiveness in the job market.

Building a "Three-in-One" Mixed Faculty Team

Huawei's in-house lecturers are actively involved in classroom teaching, practical training guidance, and graduation project supervision, while providing customized technical training for on-campus teachers covering cutting-edge fields like Atlas AI development and HarmonyOS ecosystem building. Through a two-way mechanism of "bringing enterprise expertise onto campus and sending faculty into enterprises for training," instructors are encouraged to obtain Huawei professional certifications and accumulate industrial project experience. This progressively builds a "dual-qualified" teaching team equipped with instructional proficiency, engineering practice, and industry certifications, ensuring that educational content always keeps pace with technological evolution.

Constructing an ICT Talent Express to Boost Employment

Both parties will jointly host specialized job fairs, project matchmaking sessions, and certification promotional events, completing the closed-loop cycle of "cultivation, practical training, certification, and employment." Statistics show that students holding Huawei certifications achieve employment rates and job-matching precision significantly higher than the average, with numerous graduates successfully securing positions at Huawei ecosystem enterprises, tech companies, and government-related departments. This mechanism not only elevates students' starting points in their careers but also supplies the regional digital economy with localized talent characterized by "strong readiness, solid technical skills, and high adaptability."

From the classroom to the industry, and from campus to the workplace, the partnership between Huawei and Hefei University of Economics is writing a vivid chapter for industry-education integration in Anhui. This modern AI industrial college serves not only as a "cradle" for nurturing ICT talent, but also as an "innovation engine" where technology empowers industries. Looking ahead, both sides will continue to deepen their cooperation, exploring more possibilities for "AI + majors," injecting a continuous stream of talent vitality into the development of Anhui's new quality productive forces, and providing a replicable and scalable practical model for the construction of industry-education integration in application-oriented universities across the country.