China’s AI-powered tutoring platform Squirrel Ai says its adaptive approach is already used by more than 10 million students, with government plans for a tiered AI education system and a push to train teachers to use AI. Now the company is preparing to open it
On a quiet evening inside a learning center tucked on the third floor of a shopping mall in Hangzhou. a dozen teenagers sit in cubicles. each working through tablet-based lessons. The room is calm enough that one detail stands out: there’s only one adult nearby. tasked with stepping in if the system breaks down or if students need help beyond the software.
For 18-year-old Wang Yucheng, the change is immediate and personal. She says the AI-driven platform helps her spot where she’s falling short and then comes back with targeted follow-up. “The analysis of the system is for me personally so I can better learn the knowledge points for the exams. ” she told MISRYOUM at Squirrel Ai’s office in Shanghai. “If I make a mistake it will follow up to make sure I grasp the point better. It will show some videos related to the mistake and then after watching these I can improve.”.
Squirrel Ai’s pitch is that learning doesn’t have to move at a single pace. Derek Haoyang Li. one of China’s leading AI educationalists and a founder of the Squirrel Ai platform. argues the system can make progress faster—“The new way of learning can make the learning speed like 10 times faster than before. ” he said.
Today, more than 10 million students in China are signed up on Squirrel Ai. The company is private, but Li says the Chinese government has been supportive of the technology because it can help students—especially those in far-flung regions—get up to speed and master the tools behind AI itself.
A year ago. China ordered the establishment of a “tiered AI education system” spanning primary. junior high. and senior high schools. according to the State Council Information Office. The plan isn’t just about teaching AI to children. It is also designed to “integrate AI-enabled teaching competencies into the teacher training framework.”.
That matters in a country where the pressure on schools is rising alongside demographic change. Li frames it as a race not only for performance, but for capability—teaching children how to use AI while also building the expertise to run and improve the systems.
He also warns that the gap between China and other places could widen quickly. “Now China is not so advanced, but in five years there will be a tremendous gap between China and others,” Li told MISRYOUM at Squirrel Ai’s office in Shanghai.
In the U.S. teachers are already using AI. and some schools—such as the private Alpha School network—have AI at their core. But Li’s argument is amplified by China’s top-down direction. Priten Soundar-Shah. a Harvard-trained educator and CEO of Pedagogy Ventures. describes a different reality in the United States: “Beijing can kind of set out the agenda for what tools are going to be used. what curricula are going to be established. We don’t really have an equivalent of that here. besides funding priorities or maybe some executive orders that kind of establish the importance of something. ” Soundar-Shah said. “There’s no national mandate to ensure that every single student takes a particular class. We don’t have the infrastructure for that. political infrastructure for that. and so that already creates massive differences where we’re seeing a very fragmented approach in the United States. ” he told MISRYOUM.
The technology inside Squirrel Ai is built around constant monitoring and adaptation. Li says the system tracks how students are doing closely enough to adjust the material on the fly—videos for some students. cartoons for others. If a student struggles, the platform can send material from a grade or more below until the concept clicks. It also measures how long it takes the average student to answer a particular question. and Li says it can spot when a student seems to lose concentration and then adapt accordingly.
“We can evaluate learning by hour and by even 10 minutes,” Li said. “We evaluate each of the kids, that they are learning well, our learning method, our pedagogical skill, our algorithm. That evolves to make it better.”
Materials, Li says, are developed by teachers to fit the specific curriculum. Squirrel Ai uses its own AI model rather than relying on a large language model such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. which it says can be prone to making mistakes because they are built for general-purpose tasks. Li argues the goal is accuracy tied to grade-level learning outcomes.
Squirrel Ai operates on a scale that is still a fraction of China’s broader student population. China has more than 200 million school students, and Li says Squirrel Ai has a small proportion of them. Even so, he says the company has plenty of data to keep improving.
Li offers examples from his own family. “Every kid could get 90 points out of 100,” he says. “For example, my two boys. They finished grade four math when they were in grade two. They finished grade eight physics and science when they were in grade three,” he said. Li added that his twins are now out of school and do their academic learning on the platform.
Squirrel Ai is not alone in China’s AI education push. iFlytek provides systems deployed in thousands of schools to help teachers and students, and traditional school groups are increasingly integrating AI in their classes.
Now Squirrel Ai is aiming for the U.S. market. Li says the company hopes to open its first learning center in the United States this summer, competing with other additional education providers, including Japan’s Kumon, described as the world’s biggest after-school study network.
That expansion comes with political friction that has already hit major Chinese technology brands. Li acknowledged the challenges Chinese technology companies such as Huawei and TikTok have faced in the United States due to American national security suspicions. He said Squirrel Ai’s U.S. company was established completely separately from the one in China, with the biggest shareholder being a U.S. hedge fund.
Data, Li said, would not move from the United States to China. He also added that Squirrel Ai has relied on the expertise of U.S. AI scientists for building even the Chinese version.
“We do not teach students Chinese or the Chinese culture. No. We just focus on the subjects of the math, the reading, so it’s not ideology, it’s much less sensitive,” Li said.
Back in Hangzhou, the teenagers keep working. One adult watches from nearby, not to lead a lesson but to intervene if the system needs help. In the small space of a cubicle and a tablet screen. China’s bigger education bet—faster. more adaptive learning guided by AI—is playing out in real time. And as Squirrel Ai prepares to test that model in the United States. the underlying question is no longer theoretical: whether American classrooms will move toward the same kind of national. technology-driven direction—or continue to grow in a more uneven. piece-by-piece way.
Squirrel Ai Derek Haoyang Li artificial intelligence AI education China education policy tiered AI education system Hangzhou learning center adaptive learning Priten Soundar-Shah Pedagogy Ventures Kumon iFlytek Alpha School Huawei TikTok