(Yicai Global) March 3 -- Thirty-seven new majors, including for artificial intelligence, quantum information science, flexible electronics, and cryptography, have been added to a list of undergraduate disciplines at centers of higher learning in China, according to the Science and Technology Daily.

The country’s education ministry recently released the list of approved undergrad majors for colleges and universities, the report said today.

According to the list, 102 institutions have set up five or more new programs and 130, the largest number, have added AI. Eighty-four have launched a major for intelligent manufacturing engineering. Big Data management and applications, robotics engineering, networking and new media, and cross-border e-commerce were also very popular, with more than 40 embracing majors in these fields.

Seven institutions, such as Nankai University and Beijing Institute of Technology, were approved to add a cryptography and technology major, while Tsinghua University got the nod for a major on smart engineering and creative design. University of Science and Technology of China got approval to add a quantum information major and Northwestern Polytechnical University one on flexible electronics.

Most of the majors the institutions gave up on last year were related to public utility management, information management and information systems, electronic information science and technology, product design, industrial design, clothing and accessories design, and information and computing science. More than 10 institutions cancelled these majors.

Westlake University, a new type of non-profit institution, also appeared on the list, with five undergraduate programs approved: physics, chemistry, biological sciences, materials science and engineering, and electronic information engineering. Westlake was set up by the non-state sector and has yet to enroll undergrads.

Editor: Peter Thomas