On May 6, 2026, the 308th ZY-INS Salon was hosted by Zhiyuan College, featured Associate Professor Siheng Chen from the School of Artificial Intelligence. Themed “SciMaster: Your AI Scientist Friend,” the event explored how AI can transform scientific research workflows.

Professor Chen introduced SciMaster, a general-purpose research agent developed by his team. The system supports five core research stages: searching, reading, computing, experimenting, and writing. It aims to assist researchers with literature review, knowledge organization, experimental support, data analysis, and academic writing.

Live demonstrations highlighted two key features: survey writing, which retrieves and organizes real literature, and atmospheric writing, which facilitates iterative dialogue to refine ideas and text. Chen also discussed technical efforts in long-task execution, hierarchical memory, and long-context management. He emphasized that the future of research agents requires tight integration between model capabilities, software systems, research workflows, and experimental platforms.

During the Q&A session, students asked about future automated research platforms and practical use of SciMaster in experiments. Professor Chen encouraged students to leverage AI for efficiency while maintaining an active role in problem definition, result interpretation, and critical decision-making.