On May 12, at the closing ceremony of the 2026 World Digital Education Conference, Li Yongzhi, President of the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, officially released the China Smart Education Development Report (2025–2026) and the Global Digital Education Development Index 2026 (GDEI 2026).
About the China Smart Education Development Report (2025–2026)
Closely aligned with the theme of the 2026 World Digital Education Conference, the report takes “Artificial Intelligence Redefining Education” as its annual theme. It focuses on educational transformation, development, and governance in the intelligent era, systematically elaborates the conceptual connotations of new forms of smart education, comprehensively presents China’s policy advancements and practical explorations in smart education, and proposes key issues and future trends for the global community.
The report systematically reviews the evolution of smart education in China, deeply reveals the defining characteristics of new forms of smart education, and comprehensively presents China’s practical pathway and achievements featuring top-level strategic planning, the National Smart Education Public Service Platform as the foundational infrastructure, and pilot initiatives as major implementation mechanisms. It also offers a forward-looking perspective on global trends in smart education development.
The report argues that artificial intelligence is redefining education and shaping new forms of smart education. Over the past year, China has strengthened top-level design and coordinated planning to promote the deep and extensive integration of artificial intelligence and education, opening up a new landscape for the National Education Digitalization Strategy Action 2.0. Through this research, China aims to actively foster foundational consensus and theoretical advancement in the field of smart education studies, comprehensively showcase its policies, experiences, and initiatives in advancing “AI + Education,” amplify China’s voice in global educational transformation, continuously build international consensus, and provide profound guidance for the future direction of smart education development worldwide.
About the Global Digital Education Development Index (GDEI) 2026
The Global Digital Education Development Index (GDEI) is primarily used to comprehensively assess the overall level of digital education development across countries. This year marks its third release. The study continues to adopt an evaluation paradigm based on multimodal evidence to comprehensively evaluate and track the development of digital education in 82 countries in the era of artificial intelligence.
In response to the new opportunities and challenges that artificial intelligence brings to education, GDEI 2026 returns to the essence of education by introducing a special thematic assessment on “cultivating thinking abilities beyond AI.” It conducts a comprehensive global scan of the core question: “What kind of people should education cultivate in the AI era?” The findings show that, amid the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, proactively embracing change has become a shared consensus in educational development worldwide, with 43% of countries actively planning “AI + Education” transformation initiatives. The cultivation of thinking abilities has become a global priority: 78% of countries emphasize the importance of strengthening students’ higher-order thinking skills, and 76% have established explicit goals for cultivating students’ thinking abilities. However, countries still differ in their approaches to ethical governance in “AI + Education.” GDEI 2026 also indicates that the global framework for digital education development is becoming increasingly clear, with the overall level of global digital education development improving by 3.52%. The United States, China, South Korea, and Finland have taken the lead in entering a new stage of “AI + Education.”
GDEI 2026 is not only an important research achievement for deepening global cooperation, exchange, and mutual learning in digital education, but also a concrete practice in implementing the requirement of the Outline for Building a Leading Country in Education (2024–2035) to “develop the Global Digital Education Development Index as an international public good.” More importantly, it represents an active exploration of how to respond to the transformative impact of technology on education.
The release of GDEI 2026 is expected to further stimulate global discussions on the fundamental questions of “what kind of people to cultivate and how to cultivate them in the era of artificial intelligence,” promote deeper reflection and practical exploration on returning to the essence of education in the AI era, and support future-oriented innovation and reconstruction of educational systems worldwide.