Prime Minister Netanyahu visits the Technion (archive)
Prime Minister Netanyahu visits the Technion (archive)Moshe Milner/GPO/Flash 90

The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology became the first Israeli university to open a campus in China, JTA reports.

On Monday, the Guangdong Technion Israel Institute of Technology opened in Shantou, in the Guangdong province on the southeast coast. The university is a partnership between the Haifa-based university, the Li Ka Shing Foundation, and the Guangdong provincial and Shantou municipal governments.

The school will offer undergraduate and graduate programs in engineering and science. The campus includes 13 buildings, 29 classrooms, 14 teaching laboratories and 55 research laboratories.

“‘[W]e welcome in a new era of cooperative research between Israel and China in science, engineering and the life sciences,” Technion President Peretz Lavie said at the Monday ceremony.

The Shantou institute’s chancellor, Li Jiange, said the China-Israel collaboration was mutually beneficial.

“China offers the Technion a broad platform to realize its academic excellence. We in turn must learn from the Technion and Israel what innovative thinking is,” Jiange said.

In 2013, the Li Ka Shing Foundation donated $130 million to the Israeli university, with some of the money to be used to fund the Guangdong campus. The Guangdong provincial and Shantou municipal governments also contributed $147 million for construction and initial operations, and provided land for the campus.

In September, the Technion, in collaboration with Cornell University, opened a high-tech teaching and research center on New York’s Roosevelt Island.

Last year, the Technion ranked in 36th place on the Times Higher Education (THE) list of top 200 universities in Asia.

Israel and China have been expanding their economic ties in recent years. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited China this past March and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two announced a comprehensive innovation partnership between the countries.