Singapore aims to triple AI expertise to 15,000

Singapore aims to expand its cadre of artificial intelligence professionals significantly, which will encompass machine-learning engineers and scientists.

Lawrence Wong, the Deputy Prime Minister has announced that the ambitious has planned to triple the current pool, which aims to reach a total of 15,000 experts. This initiative is a pivotal component of Singapore's overarching national AI strategy.

The Southeast Asian nation of 5.45 million, which is home to the Asian headquarters of global tech giants, such as Google owner Microsoft and Alphabet, said that it would work to boost its available high-performance computing resources by securing access through partnerships with chipmakers and cloud service providers.

In the quarter which is ending in October, Nvidia reported revenue worth USD 2.7 billion which has been attributed to Singapore, which has been ranking at the country fourth globally in revenue generation for the company.

This places Singapore behind the United States, China, and Taiwan, as disclosed in Nvidia's filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Singapore also pledged under its AI strategy to increase government incentives for the sector, including by backing accelerator programs for AI startups and encouraging companies to set up AI "centres of excellence."

In addition to the drive to recruit foreign talent, authorities plan to ramp up local AI training programmes and operate a supply of graphics processing units (GPUs) to be available to the country's researchers.

Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) announced on Monday a $52.3 million (SGD 70 million) initiative to develop Southeast Asia's first large language model, catering to the region's languages.