The 12th workshop of the Tsinghua–NUS–Southampton Centre for Extreme Search (NExT++) was recently held in Singapore under the theme “Responsible AI”. The event brought together nearly 170 faculty members, students, government officials, and industry representatives from seven countries. The opening ceremony was jointly chaired by the co-directors of NExT++: Professor Sun Maosong of Tsinghua University and Professor Chua Tat-Seng of the National University of Singapore (NUS).
Professor Zhang Bo, honorary dean of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Tsinghua University, delivered a keynote speech titled “From Large Language Models to Agentic AI,” offering an in-depth analysis of the technical pathways and key challenges in the evolution from large language models to autonomous agent systems. Professor Wendy Hall, fellow of the Royal Society and Professor at the University of Southampton, spoke on “Unintended Consequences,” exploring the unexpected impacts of AI development and calling for stronger risk governance.
During a roundtable session, Professor Tang Jie of Tsinghua’s Department of Computer Science and Technology joined international experts to discuss AI governance and ethical norms. Associate Professor Dong Yuxiao, Associate Professor Wang Hongning, Professor Liu Yang, and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Zhou Yujia shared their work on agentic large language models, interactive educational agent systems, agent-based hospital simulations, and parametric retrieval-augmented generation. Sun Maosong, Liu Yiqun, Zhang Min, and Wang Hongning chaired sub‑forums on Responsible AI, Search & Personalization, and Agentic AI. Young scholars also presented their latest research findings in fintech, AI governance, educational technology, recommender systems, and embodied AI.
In dedicated panel sessions, over 30 postdoctoral researchers and doctoral students from Tsinghua University, NUS, and the University of Southampton engaged in group discussions, helping to shape future directions for collaboration in AI research and agent system development.
Editor: Li Han
