The Ministry of Education has released the latest list of registered and approved undergraduate majors of colleges and universities recently, among which Big Data Management and Applications (Big Data and Management Science), the undergraduate major of Antai College of Economics and Management (ACEM), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) is included.

Thanks to the evolution of era which enables the integration of information technology and business activities, numerous data generated from enterprises lead to the enormous development of the big data industry. According to the report on future jobs published by the World Economic Forum, the demand for data analysts and data scientists has been growing most rapidly. The Outline of the "14th Five-Year Plan" lists the digital economy as a national strategy, meanwhile "promoting the development of digital industry and improving the application of big data" has been defined as a national development strategy. With the boom of Chinese Internet enterprises represented by Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent (BAT), business talents with data science knowledge will act as the core competitiveness of enterprises. Some of the world’s top business schools, including Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, MIT Sloan School of Management, Tepper School of Business of Carnegie Mellon University and Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, have taken the lead in setting up big-data-related undergraduate majors.

In order to meet the needs for big data undergraduate talents during the national strategic development and better support the overall development plan of the three disciplines of the college, ACEM has adjusted undergraduate majors to make continuous improvement on the quality of undergraduates' cultivation. The updated undergraduate majors are as follows since 2022:

As an emerging interdisciplinary major, Big Data Management and Applications (Big Data and Management Science) is centered on management and computer science while integrating the knowledges of philosophy, economics, sociology and other fields. This major is designed to cultivate senior management talents with international vision, innovation awareness and leadership potential, who can independently engage in data analysis, business intelligence decision-making, information management and business process optimization in fields such as business, finance and manufacturing, thus setting the stage for students to become future industry leaders or academic masters.

The undergraduate talent cultivation of ACEM SJTU will further emphasize integration and academic orientation, making the new economics and management pilot classes including Big Data Management and Applications (Big Data and Management Science) the benchmark majors of "new liberal arts" of SJTU.