China to Add 76,000 More Undergraduate Places at Double First-Class Universities, Focused on AI and Frontier Fields

Guo Peng, director of the Ministry of Education's development planning department, said at a State Council Information Office briefing on September 23 that Double First-Class universities added a cumulative 62,000 undergraduate enrollment places from 2024 to 2026, including 24,000 in 2026. The 15th Five-Year Plan outline calls for an increase of more than 100,000 undergraduate places at these universities, meaning at least 76,000 more places are needed from 2027 to 2030. The expansion is structural, officially described as focusing on frontier and emerging interdisciplinary fields such as artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, biomedicine and new energy.

Where undergraduate places flow directly shapes the scale of talent supply and the training pipeline in fields such as artificial intelligence, and affects faculty, curricula and laboratory investment in related programs. For parents and students, the total expansion is spread across four years, provinces and universities, so places in a given province may not rise; they should check per-program plans in each target university's admissions brochure. The figures cover undergraduate enrollment plans only; the briefing did not say whether graduate admissions will expand. More undergraduate places in AI and other frontier interdisciplinary fields expand the entry point for talent training in these areas. University program structures are shifting, with traditional programs shrinking, so application choices should track specific program quotas rather than a university-wide total.