Singapore Focuses on AI with 500 Projects

About 800 new training opportunities and 500 new projects will benefit 1,000 enterprises as Singapore doubles down on artificial intelligence (AI). Both mid-career AI novices as well as seasoned practitioners could have a stab at 400 training places at national programme, AI Singapore (AISG) over the next three years. Another 400 training places will be made available by companies ranging from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Oracle to Microsoft and Singtel. The new places will add to Singapore’s current pool of more than 6,000 AI professionals, said the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).

To date, at least 26 AI Centres of Excellence have been set up by organisations to drive AI innovation activities. These centres are often hubs for experimentation, training and sandboxing.

Source: https://en.wikiversity.org

About 300 of the new 800 training places will be offered over the next two years through an enhanced AI Apprenticeship Programme (AIAP) under AISG. The six-month curriculum will focus on practical industry needs. Since the programme started in 2018 to groom local AI talent, more than 410 graduates over 16 cohorts have been trained. More than 90% of its trainees were hired after graduation.

AISG will also start the Pinnacle AI Industry Programme, which will train 100 local AI practitioners into “expert model builders” over the next three years. Companies may nominate their AI-functional employees for the six-month programme. These AI professionals will get hands-on training in various stages of a large language model development life cycle, including data management, model training and development, and work on AISG’s regional-focused model, Sea-Lion.

Singapore is on track to triple its pool of tech talent over five years to 15,000 by 2028, boosted by a 25% jump in the past year through various initiatives. More than 20,000 locals have been helped into tech jobs and 320,000 individuals have picked up technology skills.

Enterprises, however, are wishing for a quicker pace. Only 12% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are in the intermediate stage of using AI. About 47% of its respondents in a survey say the local AI talent pool is insufficient to meet business needs. Among the recruitment hurdles, 51% noted high salary expectations, and 47% cited skills mismatch. To plug their immediate needs, 62% of the firms were open to hiring talent from abroad.

Will Malaysia be focused? Not likely. Why? We are in the “3R” era, which just raises costs and reduces revenues! 3R here is “retro, rhetoric and reset”. Is running on a treadmill our forte?

 

Reference:

Singapore doubles down on AI with 500 projects, Economy, The Star, 29 May 2025