GIL 2026 | Professor Ge Wanwei: In the AI Era, Why Are "X-Type Talents" More Needed?

On August 4, 2026, Frost & Sullivan Summit was held in Shanghai. The sub-forum "Talent Development System in the AI Era - Industry Research as the Track of Industry-Education Integration Practice" served as an important component of this conference. It attracted many experts, scholars, and industry representatives from universities, research institutions, and technology companies to participate. The forum engaged in in-depth discussions on various hot topics, including the transformation of education paradigms in the AI era, the cultivation of industry research capabilities, industry-education integration, and school-enterprise collaboration.

Prof. Vinod K. Aggarwal, Global Chief Economist of Frost & Sullivan, Distinguished Professor at UC Berkeley, and Director of the APEC Research Center, delivered a keynote speech titled "From AI Courses to Innovative Ecosystems: Building an Innovative System for X-Type Talents." Starting with the exploration of the industry-academia-research field by UC Berkeley, he discussed a fundamental issue that spans education and innovation: As artificial intelligence increasingly lowers the barriers to technology use, what kind of people should be cultivated in education so that innovation can move beyond the laboratory into the industry and society?

Prof. Aggarwal believes that a clear contradiction in the field of innovation and technology currently exists: there is still a gap between technical capabilities and industrial capabilities. Engineering researchers may possess cutting-edge technologies but often lack an understanding of commercial operations and capital management. Business professionals may know the market rules but have limited awareness of technological boundaries. At the same time, many startup teams tend to overlook non-market factors such as regulatory policies, industry governance, and public value. In fact, these non-market factors may directly affect whether a project will achieve long-term success.

He gave an example of a marine aquaculture startup he has worked on: This team had breeding technology without chemical additives and successfully completed seed round financing worth hundreds of millions of yuan. However, they were still affected by non-market factors such as overseas industry regulations and competition from traditional industries, resulting in long-term stagnation in development. He believes that technological breakthroughs are just the beginning of innovation. Those who can bring a technology to the market must understand both technology and business, as well as policies, and be able to build bridges between different fields.This is precisely the core value of X-type talents: they have depth in one area while also possessing breadth in cross-field collaboration and judgment.

To ensure that research results do not remain confined to papers and laboratories, UC Berkeley has established two innovative platforms with different roles but interconnected: CITRIS focuses on front-end research and technology verification, while SkyDeck is responsible for startup incubation and scale-up. Together, they form a complete chain from "research - prototype - startup - market - social impact".

CITRIS is committed to translating technology into practical applications, focusing on overcoming the "first hurdle" in applying research results. It collaborates with four campuses at UC Berkeley, Davis, Merced, and Santa Cruz, using needs such as climate, healthcare, aviation, and semiconductors to drive research projects. It provides seed funding, specialized laboratories, and testing facilities to support the development and verification of cutting-edge technology prototypes. More importantly, the platform also emphasizes considering technical safety, data privacy, fairness, and compliance regulations early in the research process, avoiding making various social and governance judgments after a project has entered the application stage.

As UC Berkeley's official startup accelerator, since its launch in 2012, SkyDeck has been working with high-quality resources such as Haas School of Business and College of Engineering. Projects selected for SkyDeck acceleration can receive investments worth $200,000, and they can connect with more than 900 industry advisors, mentors, and venture capital institutions. This not only helps teams refine their business models, verify application scenarios, and improve financing plans but also promotes the integration of engineering talent, business talent, and investment institutions. According to Prof. Aggarwal, the companies incubated by SkyDeck have received a total financing amount of up to $2.7 billion.CITRIS answers the question of "can technology be verified," while SkyDeck addresses the issue of "can innovation be organized and brought to the market." The true innovative ecosystem is built on this continuity.

As more students use generative AI to complete assignments and write papers, their ability to conduct independent research and deep thinking is at risk of weakening. This is a challenge faced by higher education around the world. UC Berkeley has taken proactive teaching adjustments, using handwritten closed-exam tests and on-site project defenses to return students to the study of professional fundamentals. These changes are not about excluding AI but reverting classroom assessments to knowledge comprehension, logical reasoning, and on-site judgment.

Prof. Aggarwal believes that AI is a supplementary tool for learning, not a "substitute" that can replace learning itself. If learners rely solely on AI to produce results, they will lose the ability to solve complex real-world problems, and over time, this will limit their career development. The core goal of education is to enable learners to use AI tools effectively and deepen their understanding of technical principles and industrial issues through these tools, rather than passively relying on AI to complete tasks.

The speech also mentioned that collaboration between industry, academia, and research is not simply putting enterprises, universities, and government together. The most important thing is for all parties to assume different responsibilities: enterprises should continuously provide real industrial pain points, industry data, and front-line mentor resources; universities should maintain scientific research independence and focus on long-term basic research; governments and the industry should work together to improve industry regulatory frameworks, promoting technological innovation while not neglecting public interests. Only when boundaries are clear, collaboration will not turn into a simple assembly of short-term projects. In terms of intellectual property management, UC Berkeley has a professional technology licensing agency that clarifies the rights and interests distribution rules among universities, researchers, and startup teams, ensuring that universities receive returns from research while leaving sufficient growth space for entrepreneurs. In terms of talent evaluation, the tradition of measuring innovation only by the number of patents is gradually changing. Measuring innovation should not only focus on the number of patents but also on whether the technology has been truly transformed, whether it has solved industrial problems, and whether it has created sustainable public value.

Prof. Aggarwal concluded that educational transformation for the AI era cannot be simply equated with adding more AI courses. Courses are just the beginning; more importantly, it is about building a complete innovative ecosystem with interconnected elements and effective collaboration: relying on CITRIS to verify cutting-edge technology concepts, using SkyDeck to accelerate the commercialization of startup teams, and enabling smooth connection between research, talent, industry, and capital at different stages.

Looking to the future, universities need to actively break down disciplinary barriers between science, engineering, business, and humanities, and cultivate X-type talents with technical skills, business vision, and policy governance capabilities.Universities should cultivate not only people who can use AI but also those who can understand technology, judge outcomes, organize collaboration, take responsibility, and always maintain independent thinking abilities.