Renowned as China's cradle for the national electronic industry, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (formerly Chengdu Institute of Radio Engineering) is situated at Chengdu, the city of over a thousand-year-old cultural history in "the land of abundance". In 1956, instructed by Premier Zhou Enlai, UESTC was founded on the basis of the incorporation of electronic divisions of the then three universities including Jiaotong Universities, Nanjing Institute of Technology and South China Institute of Technology. As one of the seven earliest key universities in national defense, UESTC became one of the nation's key universities in 1960. Then, in 1997 it was included as one of the first universities into "Project 211", a project in China for developing 100 first-class universities and a number of key fields of research for the 21st century. In 2001, UESTC was admitted into the nation?s Project 985, receiving special support for developing world-class universities and world-famous research-oriented universities. In 2017, the University was selected as one of "Double First-class" universities (Top 36).

The Engineering subject of UESTC is ranked No. 56 (Top 0.35‰) and Computer Science is ranked No. 32 (Top 0.64‰) globally by Latest Global Ranking by Essential Science Indicators (ESI).