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We are pleased to announce that Professor Yixin Zhong, Professor at the Center for Intelligent Science and Technology at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) and former Vice President of BUPT—who has also served as the inaugural Chief Expert for the Communications theme under China’s National High-Tech R&D Program (Program 863) and as former President of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (CAAI)—has been elected a Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) in recognition of his pioneering contributions to foundational information science and methodologies for general artificial intelligence.
Professor Zhong has long focused on foundational research in information science and artificial intelligence, emphasizing that “truly useful information” should be understood as an integrated triad—syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic information—and advancing the systematic development of comprehensive information and semantic information theory. Centered on the “information–knowledge–intelligence transformation,” he has articulated a mechanistic research program, arguing that a shared core mechanism of intelligence generation can be framed as information conversion, and using this framework to discuss how mainstream approaches can be unified and made complementary.
- Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem
Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.
- About WAAC
The World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (https://www.waac.ac/) is a global academic institution established in Paris in 2025. Its mission is to advance frontier research and international collaboration in artificial consciousness through the integration of science, technology, and philosophy. The Academy publishes open research, policy recommendations, evaluation standards, and more. The current President is Academician Yucong Duan, and the Secretary-General is Dr. Yingbo Li. The Honorary Academician List: On May 3, 2025, WAAC released its first batch of Top 100 Honorary Academicians, recognizing scholars who have made foundational or leading contributions to the theory of artificial consciousness.