China's billionaires are building private universities to challenge Stanford. It might work

Video: China's billionaires are building private universities to challenge Stanford. It might work. 中國的億萬富翁正在興建私立大學，挑戰史丹佛大學。這或許能奏效.

Some of China's wealthiest industrialists are spending billions to establish private universities, with the goal of building world-class institutes for research and applied sciences.

Their stated objectives are bold: to directly challenge the top universities globally, attract hundreds of top scientists, and hundreds of thousands of the brightest students. In doing so, they will become global benchmarks for excellence at the highest level.

At first glance it seems unlikely that a new university could soon place among top universities worldwide. But two other privately-funded Chinese universities already are. Geely Automotive Group established a university to train engineers; the company is now the world's 10th largest.

And Westlake University in Hangzhou was founded a mere seven years ago, by top scientists in biology. In key fields, Westlake today is already ahead of global top 100 schools like Texas, University of Sydney, and University of North Carolina.

一些中國最富有的實業家正斥資數十億美元創辦私立大學，目標是打造世界一流的研究和應用科學機構。

他們雄心勃勃地宣稱：直面全球頂尖大學，吸引數百名頂尖科學家和數十萬名最優秀的學生。如此一來，這些大學將成為全球最高水準的卓越標竿。

乍一看，一所新大學似乎不太可能很快就躋身世界頂尖大學之列。但另外兩所中國民辦大學已躋身世界頂尖大學之列。吉利汽車集團創辦了一所培養工程師的大學；目前是世界第十大大學。

杭州西湖大學成立於僅僅七年前，由頂尖的生物學科學家創立。如今，在關鍵領域，西湖大學已經領先德州大學、雪梨大學和北卡羅來納大學等全球百大高校.