Alibaba Group founder and chairman Jack Ma underscored the need for new approaches to education that will better equip students for the era of artificial intelligence (AI) at a forum during the second World Intelligence Congress in Tianjin municipality on Wednesday.

Speaking at a forum with the theme "Frontiers: Intelligence Technology and Industrial Innovation in China," Ma said that with the growth of AI, students may increasingly face unemployment if they receive only traditional methods of education.

He said, "There is almost no chance that human beings will win if they compete with machines on memory and calculation in the future."

Instead of imparting knowledge, which has been the focus of education over the past century—an era marked by industrialization—schools should do more to help students develop creativity, global vision and a sense of responsibility, he explained.

Ma also noted that college education is overplayed in China and that more attention should be given to preschool, primary and secondary education, which provide the basic groundwork for cognitive growth.

He also highlighted the importance of the generations born in the 1980s, '90s and '00s, who, being born in the era of the internet, are bold enough to break new ground.

With the theme "The Age of Intelligence: New Progress, New Trends, New Efforts," the second World Intelligence Congress focuses on the changes and opportunities presented by AI technologies, as well as how the field can be utilized to shape a sustainable world.

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