SINGAPORE: About 800 new training opportunities and as many as 500 new projects to benefit 1,000 enterprises will be rolled out as Singapore doubles down on artificial intelligence (AI), a cornerstone of its digital economy strategy.

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) at the start of its three-day ATxEnterprise 2025 conference, held under its annual cluster of Asia Tech x Singapore events.

Making the opening address on May 27 to about 200 delegates at Singapore Expo, Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Tan Kiat How said the digital economy contributes to nearly 18% of the local economy.

And the country continues to draw investments.

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.

Tan said: “Despite the global uncertainty, we expect technology, especially AI, to continue to drive quality economic growth.

“As companies expand their AI teams and deepen their capabilities in Singapore, they will require more practitioners with AI expertise.”

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.

Called AIAP Industry, 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 told The Straits Times.

One of its apprentices, Jerald Han, 33, left his job as a deputy director at the Housing Board to join the AI Apprenticeship in 2024.

Furthermore, Han is now a natural language processing engineer at local AI unicorn Patsnap.

He said: “I had an engineering background but very little software engineering knowledge.

“AIAP definitely gave me the boost I needed as it covered many industry-relevant and practical skills, such as the importance of writing readable code and machine learning operations concepts.”

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 with schools and skills upgrading programmes, said IMDA.

More than 20,000 locals have been helped into tech jobs and 320,000 individuals have picked up technology skills, the agency added.

Enterprises, however, are wishing for a quicker pace, according to an April survey of 350 local companies commissioned by global payroll firm Deel.

It shows that only 12% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are in the intermediate stage of using AI, citing a shortage of AI talent.

About 47% of its respondents 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. — The Straits Times/ANN