The university lab just hired an ai that designs its own experiments. zhejiang university and…
the university lab just hired an ai that designs its own experiments. zhejiang university and alibaba cloud launched the country's first open program for agentic science at the yunqi conference on september 24, asking universities to submit problems an autonomous researcher can judge, call tools for, and keep pursuing, while purdue makes ai working competency a graduation requirement this fall.
the phd student may soon be the one writing the proposal the ai executes.
Context
Verified source: Hangzhou Daily (Sep 23, 2026) and Eetrend (Sep 22) report that at the 2026 Yunqi Conference, Zhejiang University and Alibaba Cloud began what Eetrend calls China's first AI autonomous research challenge: Zhejiang's 'Qiushi Engine' system working for 72 hours without intervention on the mathematical kissing number problem.
Purdue's newsroom says its AI working competency graduation requirement begins in every undergraduate degree program, after trustees approved it in Dec 2025.
The Yunqi event and the Zhejiang and Alibaba Cloud pairing match the reports, but they date the challenge to Sep 22, and describe a 72-hour live run on one math problem. The post describes an open program asking universities to submit problems, dated Sep 24, which was not seen in the sources read, so unsupported here, not refuted. in the excerpts read. The Purdue requirement was approved in Dec 2025. 'The phd student may be the one writing the proposal' is the author's speculation.
Related work
- Purdue AI strategy, Purdue ↗Dec 12, 2025 approval.
Watch next
- Look for the Yunqi announcement of any open call for university problems.
Sources
- 浙大求是引擎亮相云栖大会, Hangzhou Dailyhznews.hangzhou.com.cn
- 浙江大学联合阿里云发起国内首个AI自主科研挑战, Eetrendeetrend.com
- Purdue's AI competency graduation requirement begins in every undergraduate degree program, Purduepurdue.edu
- Purdue unveils comprehensive AI strategy, Purduepurdue.edu
Provenance
The note above is reproduced unedited from the original post, first published on Threads on 24 September 2026 at 19:59 IST. Sources are the papers and datasets the note draws on.
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