École Polytechnique Makes Artificial Intelligence a Mandatory Second-Year Course for All Engineering Students

Starting in September 2026, École polytechnique — France's leading engineering grande école — requires every second-year student in its Cycle Ingénieur Polytechnicien programme to take a new mandatory course in artificial intelligence, ending the previous arrangement in which AI exposure depended on elective choices.
The roughly 35-hour course (modelled on the school's existing 'Hi!Paris Databootcamp' format used to bring third-year entrants up to speed) is built in two parts: a foundations module covering learning-algorithm principles and their intrinsic limitations, followed by an applications module in which all ten of the school's academic departments show how AI is reshaping their own disciplines, from drug discovery and bio-imaging to climate adaptation and macroeconomic forecasting.
The school frames the course as preparing every future engineer — regardless of eventual specialisation — to 'understand, mobilise and question' AI before third-year track choices are made. Because the course only began this term, no outcome data exists yet, and access remains limited to the highly selective Polytechnicien cohort rather than the broader French student population.

Read the full analysis: https://www.polytechnique.edu/presse/communiques-et-dossiers-de-presse/lecole-polytechnique-generalise-lenseignement-de-lintelligence-artificielle-en-2eme-annee-partir-de