How practical-based learning for AI can close the digital skills gap

There is a real simplicity to the use of some modern artificial intelligence (AI) tools. So much so that it can sometimes give the impression that learning to use them is just a case of reading up on algorithms and low-code apps.

Indeed, we’ve all read the news stories about students using ChatGPT for essay assignments. But in reality, to really learn about AI, one needs hands-on, practical training, with real-world applications.

The problem here is that schools do not necessarily have the resources or the curricular flexibility to accommodate the teaching of modern technologies. Reportedly, the world is already at a point of mass skills shortages – many of these are for jobs and roles that demand practical knowledge of AI – and that will only become more acute if educational institutions, from kindergarten to sophomore and graduate, don’t move on from outdated teaching methods.

Cultivating the next generation of AI engineers, developers, and leaders is a challenge for universities around the world. But they’re faced with a lack of cutting-edge resources, are forced to use experimental platforms that are fragmented, and also lack sufficient computing power. These constraints are further exacerbated by the too often poor alignment between teaching practices and the needs of today’s industries.

“I believe that there are both challenges and opportunities for the future of the education sector powered by AI,” Du Min, vice president of Global Public Sector BU, president of Higher Education BU, Huawei, said at a public sector-focused event at MWC 2026.

“Some companies are now hiring excellent students from middle schools and high schools, instead of from the higher education system, to work directly for them and give them training. So that means that most companies believe the higher education system is now outdated.”

Outdated systems of education

For Huawei, the AI era adds ever more importance to all types of education, including higher education and basic education. The tech giant believes that schools need to take a more proactive approach towards AI technology. Across their organizations, upskilling faculty members and updating teaching techniques and methodology so that they meet the needs of today.

“We noticed that some schools are already taking actions, for example, they are now changing their teaching methods towards PBL (project-based learning) or problem-based learning, and encouraging cross-disciplinary learning,” Min explains.

“In fact, such demand has always been there over the last 20 years; it’s just that the education system has always been dominated by industrial civilization. And it has been like that for around 100 years, waiting for change. And AI actually brings forward that requirement to make them more salient in this era.”

Huawei has its own AI Practice Lab service that provides universities with the processing power, practical tools, and teaching resources they need to develop comprehensive AI training. Spanning from foundational computing to top-level applications.

“That’s why Huawei decided to embrace the PBL method by introducing AI into schools and the education sector so that they can better combine the industry practices with theories,” Min says.

Practical AI 101

This area of education forms the basis of a partnership between Huawei and the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), where the two organizations explore practical applications for integration into industry.

This includes the establishment of AI-powered interdisciplinary labs that cultivate talent with both AI and industry knowledge. And organized training by corporate experts at the university, which offers over 20 specialized courses.

Ultimately, the goal is to more closely align university education with developments in the real world. The partnership has introduced the latest industry knowledge and modern technologies into the university curriculum. Through this partnership, the Beijing Institute of Technology trains more than 1,000 AI professionals with practical skills each academic year.

Another way in which Huawei supports practical learning is through its extensive use cases and partner course resources. This forms a rich content library for teachers, with general and specialized AI education courses, and interdisciplinary courses that combine AI with other disciplines. This includes life sciences, integrated circuits, and chemistry, according to Huawei.

Similarly, the AI Practice Enablement Platform provides an entry point for practical teaching. It’s also flexible as it supports cloud-on-premises collaboration with resources managed in the cloud, while experimental environments can be deployed on-demand either online or off.

Intelligent transformation of higher education

It’s no secret that artificial intelligence is a computation-heavy science. Power and storage capacity are needed in abundance. For educational institutes and research facilities, this means higher requirements for underlying infrastructure.

The Shanghai Jiao Tong University knows this all too well. It worked with Huawei to build the Zhiyuan-1, the world's largest computing power platform for universities. It has a peak computing power of 633 PetaFLOPS and a storage capacity of 13PB (petabytes). It works with eight large models, including DeepSeek, which have been deployed on the platform.

Zhiyuan-1 provides Model as a Service (MaaS), supporting the training of large models with hundreds of billions of parameters, helping to meet diverse research needs.

The platform has been used by researchers to accelerate breakthroughs in fundamental sciences and medical research. It has also been used to build a world-leading database of deep-sea organisms and improve diagnostic accuracy in early cancer screening models. It has served over 38,000 people to date.

Through its dedication to integrating resources and technologies into all elements and processes of education, Huawei has helped to steer teachers and students closer towards the needs of businesses and industries at large. To date, the company has served over 7,800 education and research institutions globally.