[2] The university has 13 schools, 11 national research platforms, 8 science-education integration colleges, and 5 joint cooperative institutes with local governments.

The university was founded in Beijing by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in September 1958.

[2] In 2012, USTC and the National University of Defense Technology signed a strategic agreement to cooperate on quantum computing research at a ceremony attended by Pan Jianwei and Yang Xuejun.

[28] It ranked 10th in Asia and 4th in Emerging countries & Mainland China after (Tsinghua, Peking and Zhejiang) in 2020 by Times Higher Education.

[35] The Nature Index Research Leaders 2024, which measures the largest groups of papers published in 145 leading high-quality science journals,[36] ranks USTC the No.2 university in China and the Asia Pacific region, and 3th in the world among the global universities (after Harvard and UCAS).

[39] Nature Index tracks the affiliations of high-quality scientific articles and presents research outputs by institution and country on monthly basis.