Qionghai Dai

Also known as 戴琼海, Dai Qionghai

Qionghai Dai is a Tsinghua University professor and Chinese Academy of Engineering academician whose group builds computational imaging systems and photonic AI chips. Born in Shanghai in 1964, he studied mathematics at Shaanxi Normal University, worked as an engineer at Yuejin Steel Works, and earned his doctorate at Northeastern University in 1996. He joined Tsinghua's Department of Automation in 1999, became a professor in 2005, and was elected to the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2017. His Imaging and Intelligent Technology Laboratory developed the RUSH microscope in 2018 and RUSH3D in 2024, and with Lu Fang he led the Taichi photonic chiplet published in Science in 2024. He is Dean of the School of Information Science and Technology at Tsinghua and President of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence.

Now at: Tsinghua University and Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence
Born: 1964
Works: 942
Citations: 31,504
h-index: 94
Rankings: #75 by last-author papers and #97 by cited papers
Badges: Rising
Bridge
Wayfarer
Loyal

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

1983–1996

Doctorate at Northeastern University

Born in Shanghai in 1964, he enters Shaanxi Normal University in 1983 to study mathematics. After graduating in 1987, he works as an engineer at Yuejin Steel Works in Xinjiang, then earns a Master of Engineering degree in 1994 and a Doctor of Engineering degree in 1996 at Northeastern University.
1999–2005

Professor at Tsinghua

He joins the faculty of the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University in 1999, and in 2005 he becomes a professor and a Distinguished Young Scholar of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars.
2017

Chinese Academy of Engineering

In November 2017, the Chinese Academy of Engineering announces its list of new academicians, and Dai, a professor in Tsinghua's Department of Automation, is one of four Tsinghua professors elected.
2018–2024

RUSH and RUSH3D microscopes

In 2018, his Imaging and Intelligent Technology Laboratory at Tsinghua develops RUSH, a gigapixel mesoscale fluorescence microscope with a centimeter-level field of view and subcellular resolution. A Cell paper from September 2024, with Dai as co-corresponding author, introduces RUSH3D, which images in three dimensions at 20 Hz and, using computational imaging and machine-learning algorithms, tracks more than 3,000 mouse neurons over several days.
2020

State Council counsellor in 2020

The State Council engages him as a counsellor in July 2020. As President of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence and Dean of Tsinghua's School of Information Science and Technology, he delivers the opening speech and a keynote at the 2020 Global Artificial Intelligence Technology Conference in Hangzhou, covering algorithm, computing power and human-AI interaction.
2023–2024

Photonic chips ACCEL and Taichi

The ACCEL all-analog chip combining electronic and light computing appears in Nature in 2023, and Dai says the Tsinghua team has built a prototype and will work toward a general-purpose AI chip. In April 2024, Science publishes Taichi, a photonic chiplet from a team led by Lu Fang and Dai that reaches 160 TOPS/W and classifies more than 1,000 categories on chip; in August 2024, Nature publishes the team's fully forward-mode training architecture for photonic neural networks.
February 2026

ASTERIS for deep-space imaging

In February 2026, Science publishes ASTERIS, an AI model from a cross-disciplinary Tsinghua team that reconstructs deep-space images as a 3D spatiotemporal volume. Applied to James Webb Space Telescope data, it deepens detection by 1.0 magnitude, and Dai, a professor in Tsinghua's Department of Automation, says faint objects hidden by noise can be reconstructed with high fidelity.
As of October 2026

Dean and CAAI president

He is Dean of the School of Information Science and Technology at Tsinghua and President of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, and he co-chairs the 2026 China Intelligent Industry Summit in Shenzhen. His work covers system neuroscience, artificial intelligence, computational imaging, large-scale data analysis methods and neuromorphic optoelectronic devices.