National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) is a comprehensive national key university under the dual supervision of the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Education, designated for Project 211 and Project 985, the two national plans for facilitating the development of Chinese higher education. NUDT was originally founded in 1953 as the Military Academy of Engineering in Harbin of Heilongjiang Province. In 1970 the Academy of Engineering moved southwards to Changsha and was renamed Changsha Institute of Technology. The Institute changed its name to National University of Defense Technology in 1978. NUDT is located in the urban area of Changsha, capital city of Hunan Province in South-Central China, covering a total area of 373 hectares.

Over 50 years later, NUDT has developed into a comprehensive university of sciences, engineering, military science, management, economics, philosophy, literature, education, law, and history. The university consists of 10 colleges, under with there are over 40 departments, institutes and laborations, 4 national key laboratories and 1 key laboratory at the Ministry of Education level. NUDT plays a leading role in many subjects, nine of which are national key subjects. According to the National Subject Evaluation of the years 2002-2004 organized by the Ministry of Education, 5 subjects of NUDT entered the list of top 5 and its subject of Computer Science and Technology ranked first nationwide.

Now, NUDT has over 2,000 faculty members, 300 of which are professors. There are over 17,000 fulltime students, among which 11,000 are undergraduates, 4,000 are master candidates, and 2,000 are doctoral candidates. NUDT offers 27 programs for undergraduates, 95 programs for master candidates and 51 programs for doctoral candidates. Moreover, 11 post-doctoral research facilities are authorized on campus.

NUDT treasures international collaboration and cooperation. With strong commitment to internationalization, the university has academic ties with over 100 universities and research institutes from 40 countries and regions. It has signed formal collaboration agreements with more than 10 well-known universities. The univeristy invites hundreds of scholars with international fame to give lectures and academic seminars every year, and holds lagre-scale international academic conferences. The university annually sends out more than 300 teaching or research staff as short-term overseas visitors to study, to carry out joint research, or to pay academic visits.