Illustration: Liu Xidan/GT

The 2025 World Chinese Language Conference is currently underway in Beijing, with the theme "Innovation Leads, AI Empowers: Learning Chinese Without Borders." Stepping into the exhibition areas, AI elements stand out as a highlight feature. Technologies such as intelligent speech, interactive learning, and creative generation have come together to create a new, intelligent, and imaginative ecosystem for Chinese language education, attracting many foreign guests to experience its tech-driven approach.

During the conference's opening ceremony and multiple parallel forums, many foreign guests, in their speeches, noted the booming of Chinese language education in their home countries. 

According to China's Ministry of Education, 86 countries have incorporated Chinese language learning into their national education systems.

Globally, the "Chinese fever" is converging with the AI wave. This convergence has not only transformed the way Chinese language teaching is conducted but also injected brand new vitality into research on Sinology in the new era, for which Chinese language education serves as a bridge. 

Against this backdrop, how AI can advance Sinology in the new era, while ensuring technological progress does not erode cultural depth, has become a key concern for scholars both in China and abroad.

At its most fundamental level, AI acts as a powerful catalyst dismantling barriers to education. As highlighted by Thailand's Education Minister Narumon Pinyosinwat during the opening ceremony, AI serves as an inexhaustible personalized tutor, tailoring curricula to individual progress and providing real-time feedback. This innovation significantly accelerates language acquisition.

Furthermore, the true transformative power of AI lies in its ability to democratize access. AI platforms effectively erase geographical constraints, enabling students in some countries' remote areas to access the same high-quality Chinese language and cultural resources as those in major metropolises. 

The ultimate goal extends beyond linguistic competence to fostering cultural and technological literacy, thereby solidifying the foundation for international partnerships. In this context, AI helps position Chinese language learning as a key vehicle for shared prosperity.

Beyond the classroom, AI is fundamentally reshaping the paradigms of global research on new Sinology, pushing it from traditional textual exegesis toward an intelligently empowered, globalized discipline. This evolution demands a new kind of scholar.

Jia Wenjian, president of Beijing Foreign Studies University, compellingly argues that education should nurture "bridge-builders" capable of explaining "the roots of Chinese civilization and its contemporary value in language and logic the world understands." To achieve this, a Sinology plus integrated curriculum is essential. By merging data science, area studies, and global governance with traditional Sinology, educators can foster interdisciplinary "knowledge integrators" equipped with technical skills, humanistic depth, and a global vision.

This aligns with the vision of Luminita Balan, director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Bucharest, Romania, who observed that Chinese modernization emphasizes cultural confidence, and AI provides the high-tech empowerment needed to spread culture, offering solutions for civilizational dialogue amid global transformations. Future Sinology will engage in building a shared human knowledge and value system with an intelligent, globalized, and open approach. 

The integration of AI and Sinology marks a new stage in the global spread of Chinese civilization where technology empowers culture, and culture guides technology. This is both an inherent requirement of Chinese modernization and an inevitable direction for mutual learning among human civilizations, Balan said at one parallel forum.

However, this technological leap forward brings profound responsibilities. The integration of AI and Sinology marks a new stage in civilizational transmission, but it must be guided by a conscious effort to build an AI within cultural connotation.

Yi Fan, vice president of Shandong University, issued a crucial warning: "We cannot outsource the construction of our value systems entirely to technology, nor should we allow AI to independently define cultural frameworks." 

The duty of the new generation of scholars is to cultivate AI that is ethically aware, historically grounded, and imbued with humanistic spirit, one that reflects civilizational diversity and strengthens, rather than weakens, cultural pluralism.

This view was echoed by Dario Famularo, an Italian lecturer at Sichuan International Studies University who told the Global Times that contemporary Sinology is not a shift from "history" to the "present," but an endeavor to make history and modernity converse within the same narrative space. China's rapid social development, its technological innovations, and its changing social structures are not just subjects of study; they constantly reshape how scholars understand cultural exchange and globalization, he noted. 

To truly grasp the continuity and creativity of Chinese civilization, one must integrate its past with its present. New ways of living prompt new questions about old problems, while new historical research provides intellectual resources for understanding contemporary phenomena.

As noted by Burundian sinologist Etienne Bankuwiha, young sinologists in the new era must cultivate the ability to think independently and critically, using their own eyes and minds to discover an "authentic, multidimensional, and comprehensive China," and "this represents the shared responsibility of our generation of sinologists," he told the Global Times.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. life@globaltimes.com.cn