QS Quacquarelli Symonds, a London-based higher education analyst firm, released on Wednesday its latest assessment of Asia's 500 best universities, which saw institutions from China taking seven out of the top 10 slots in the rankings.

The top 10 are: National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, the University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"Since the founding of New China 70 years ago, China has achieved great success in modernizing its higher education. Some of China's cutting-edge research areas have started to assume global leading positions," said Dr. Christina Yan Zhang, China director of QS.

Among the top 500 institutions assessed, China has the highest number, 165 in total (118 from the Chinese mainland). India follows with 101, Japan with 87 and South Korea with 71.

Ten Chinese mainland universities are among the top 50 for academic reputation, an indicator based on a global survey of 94,672 leading academics, while six mainland universities make the top 50 in the employer reputation measure, based on a global survey of 44,884 recruiters, with Peking University ranked first and Tsinghua University second, according to QS.

It is in the research indicators that Chinese mainland institutions really shine. There are 25 of them among the top 50 in citations per paper, an indicator measuring the influence of the research papers produced, QS stated.

QS has been compiling university rankings since 2004, when it published the inaugural "QS World University Rankings." Since then, the rankings have grown to be one the world's most popular sources of comparative data about university performance.