TMTPOST -- Fudan University, one of China’s most prestigious universities, announced on Wednesday that it had launched the Fudan Emerging Engineering Development Fund, with an initial phase supported by Chen Tianqiao, a university council member.

The amount of the new engineering fund's initial phase is 120 million yuan (about $16.6 million). The engineering fund will focus on faculty building, research and talent cultivation, supporting the Shanghai-based university’s efforts to strengthen its engineering disciplines. The fund also aims to empower the university’s six major innovation institutes in achieving high-quality growth.

Chen Tianqiao and his wife Chrissy Luo, the founders of Tianqiao & Chrissy Chen Institute, a non-profit entity dedicated to brain research

In addition to the engineering fund, the university has also launched three other development funds, covering basic research, new liberal arts and new medical sciences, in order to back the growth of disciplines across science, humanities, medicine, and engineering.

Chen, a graduate of the 1999 class of economics, the founder of Shanda Group and the Tianqiao & Chrissy Chen Institute, made the largest single donation of 50 million yuan, along with his wife Chrissy Luo.

Other major donations include:

· 30 million yuan from Op Lighting Co., Ltd., a company founded by Fudan council member Ma Xiuhui;

· 30 million yuan from the Shangyu District of Shaoxing City, a local government partner of the university;

· 10 million yuan from Fudan alumnus Lu Rongfu, Vice Chairman and Deputy General Manager of Xiamen Yealink Network Technology Co., Ltd.

Chen founded Shanda Network Group in 1999, becoming a pioneer in China’s online gaming and online literature sectors. In 2016, the couple established the Tianqiao & Chrissy Chen Institute, and it has become the world’s largest privately funded brain science research institution. The institute has supported a wide range of cutting-edge brain science research globally and is recognized as a trailblazer in private philanthropy funding basic research.

In 2017, the Tianqiao & Chrissy Chen Institute collaborated with Fudan University-affiliated Huashan Hospital and the Shanghai Zhou Liangfu Medical Development Foundation to establish the Shanghai Tianqiao Brain Health Research Institute and the Applied Neurotechnology Frontier Laboratory.

In recent years, the couple has also been deeply involved in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) research. The funds donated to the university will be used to set up the Tianqiao Research Institute in partnership with Fudan’s School of Computing and Intelligence Innovation, one of Fudan’s six new engineering schools. The institute will focus on frontier research and talent training in areas such as the integration of artificial intelligence and human intelligence, particularly long-term memory.

“I am delighted to contribute once again to my alma mater on Fudan’s 120th anniversary. The university encourages us to become excellent and interesting Fudan people, which truly reflects the spirit of keeping pace with the times in the age of AI. We will always remain curious, making ‘staying interesting’ a constant driving force for innovation, and ‘excellence’ an eternal goal,” said Chen.

Jin Li, the President of Fudan University President and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, announced that the university plans to enroll over 1,000 undergraduates across its six innovation schools this year, a year-on-year increase of more than 20%, in order to accommodate more students’ interests in emerging engineering fields. Within each innovation school, students will have full freedom to change majors. The university has also launched 18 integrated undergraduate-master’s and undergraduate-doctoral programs, covering nearly half (43%) of the undergraduates in the innovation schools. In addition, Fudan has initiated an elite talent program with six top-tier classes, each led by an academic advisor who is a leading scientist.

In an open letter at the end of 2024, Chen said that Shanda possesses unique advantages in the next wave of AI competition. Backed by over 20 years of accumulated capital and brand value and free from lingering issues that trouble other companies from the same era, Shanda is deeply rooted in China, with a global perspective and international operational experience. It combines the mechanisms and vitality of an innovative enterprise with the patience and commitment of a non-profit entity.

“Today’s Shanda is both mature and young, both Chinese and global. It is here to generate profits but, more importantly, to contribute to humanity and society,” Chen said in the letter.