New AI Workforce Program to Train Singapore Students Announced

Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education (ITE) has entered a three-year partnership with Nvidia to deliver AI training for ITE students through a jointly developed program.

AI Workforce Readiness Programme

An AI training facility at ITE College Central will also be established with Nvidia’s AI supercomputing platform as part of the partnership. This will be ITE’s first facility for students to work on real-world AI projects and will allow students to co-develop AI solutions to address business needs.

Staff at these companies will be trained to manage AI applications while students will have the opportunity to apply their AI skills to real-world problems.

As reported by local broadsheets, the AI Workforce Readiness Programme will see close to 400 ITE students trained to apply and integrate AI systems from April. The partnership is expected to benefit up to 2,000 students in the next three years.

“More companies are [seeking] to reap gains in productivity through AI. With the strong push towards AI, there is a strong demand for skilled AI talents,” said Low Khah Gek, chief executive officer of ITE.

“What is special about this partnership is that it allows our students to hone their skills through real-world AI projects while supporting businesses in the adoption of AI. This reinforces our efforts to equip students with skills that are relevant to industry needs.”

Speaking to The Straits Times, Low says the institute is looking to help more than 4,500 companies offering internships to ITE students and another 450 companies taking on ITE trainees to tap AI-enabled solutions from Nvidia's network of start-ups in Singapore.

The signing of the partnership agreement was attended by Education Minister Chan Chun Sing, who noted that a wide spectrum of skill sets and job roles are necessary to achieve Singapore's national AI strategy.

These roles “cannot be fulfilled by a single pipeline of university graduates” and polytechnics and ITE provide an important source of talent for these roles, he noted.

“AI is a once-in-a-generation technology that is transforming industries around the world. As a leader in this space through GPU accelerated computing, NVIDIA will work closely with ITE to share and transfer knowledge, advance AI curriculum, and prepare the workforce of tomorrow for Singapore,” said Dennis Ang, senior director of enterprise business for SEA and ANZ at Nvidia.

Image credit: iStockphoto/monsitj