S'pore doubles down on AI with 800 new training spaces, 500 business projects

Straits Times

27-05-2025

Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Tan Kiat How said the digital economy contributes to 18 per cent of the local economy. The Straits Times
S'pore doubles down on AI with 800 new training spaces, 500 business projects
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, and another 400 training places made available by companies ranging from AWS and Oracle to Microsoft and Singtel.
The new places will add to Singapore's current pool of over 6,000 AI professionals, said the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) at the start of its three-day ATX Enterprise 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 18 per cent 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.
Mr 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. Over 90 per cent of its trainees were hired after graduation, AISG told The Straits Times.
One of its apprentices, Mr Jerald Han, 33, left his job as a deputy director at HDB to join the AI Apprenticeship in 2024. He 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, machine learning operations concepts.'
AISG will also start the Pinnacle AI Industry Programme (PAIP), 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 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 per cent 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 tech skills, the agency added.
Enterprises, however, are wishing for a quicker pace, according to a survey in April of 350 local companies commissioned by global payroll firm Deel.
It shows that only 12 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises are in the intermediate stage of using AI, citing a shortage of AI talent.
About 47 per cent of its respondents say the local AI talent pool is insufficient to meet business needs. Among the recruitment hurdles, 51 per cent noted high salary expectations, and 47 per cent cited skills mismatch. To plug their immediate needs, 62 per cent of the firms were open to hiring talent from abroad.
Referring to the findings, Mr Nick Catino, Deel's global head of policy, said: 'Talent remains the single biggest barrier to scaling AI. Cross-border hiring and remote work offer Singapore businesses access to global expertise, but this expertise must be harnessed to empower and elevate local teams.'
For enterprises, Mr Tan announced that another 1,000 firms will get support such as funding and guidance for up to 500 new AI projects in the next 12 months under an expanded Gen AI for Digital Leaders initiative.
The programme to help firms adopt AI has been used by more than 200 enterprises for 50 projects as at April.
One of these firms, White restaurant, integrated its human resource management system to combine employees' attendance, pay slips, leave and claim applications onto an app. It also introduced an AI bot using IMDA's Chief-Technology-Officer-as-a-Service (CTO-as-a-Service) programme.
White's director, Ms Laureen Tan, said: 'Grant application was easy to understand... The vendor also provided hands-on training and support and within a short period of time, our team members adapted to the system.'
Mr Tan noted that another three companies – Alibaba Cloud, ST Engineering and Prudential Singapore – have made commitments to help local firms.
Alibaba Cloud pledged to help up to 3,000 SMEs and digital solution providers in cloud technologies and AI, while ST Engineering will provide free cyber threat scanning services for up to 2,000 SMEs . Prudential Singapore committed up to 10 gen AI tech explainer videos as part of its pledge.
These firms join eight partners – AWS, DBS, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, SGTech, Singapore Business Federation and Singapore Computer Society – whose pledges of support in 2024 helped 10,000 enterprises, noted Mr Tan.
As part of Singapore's efforts to to boost South-east Asia's AI cooperation, AISG is also launching the first pan-South-east Asia AI developer challenge to build AI solutions customised for the region.
Singapore is committed to driving impactful digital innovation, alongside like-minded stakeholders, said Mr Tan.
Closing his address, he said: 'Singapore's value lies not just in our capabilities, but in our consistency – in being a partner you can count on, even when the world is less certain.'
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