Global tech giant Amazon plans to develop innovative AI solutions and support Singapore’s Smart Nation and National AI Strategy 2.0 (NAIS 2.0) goals, it announced at the 10th AWS ASEAN Summit in the island nation on Tuesday.
Furthermore, the company’s cloud business unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), said it plans to invest an additional S$12 billion (US$9 billion) into its existing cloud infrastructure in Singapore from 2024 to 2028. AWS invested S$11.5 billion in the Asia Pacific (Singapore) region through 2023. With the new tranche, the total planned investment into its existing cloud infrastructure is set to double to more than S$23 billion by 2028.
For the AI initiative, Amazon has partnered with SEA-LION, GovTech Singapore’s Analytics.gov, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore’s Maritime AI-ML Digital Hub, the National Library Board’s StoryGen, and Synapxe for this initiative, named AWS AI Spring for Singapore.
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The multifaceted collaboration will help accelerate the adoption of AI and generative AI in the city-state. The programme looks to help advance the government’s goal to triple the pool of AI practitioners to 15,000 over five years.
AWS will collaborate with Institutes of Higher Learnings (IHLs) like universities and polytechnics, and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) on AI learning, with an aim to train 5,000 individuals across these learning institutions on AI skills yearly over three years, from 2024-2026. It will also leverage its generative AI services to empower teachers and students in IHLs, facilitating their learning, exploration, and experimentation with the technology.
AWS AI Spring for Singapore has six strategic pillars:
- AI Spring Public Sector: to collaborate on driving AI initiatives within the Singapore Government and government agencies to benefit industries and citizens
- AI Spring Workforce: a series of AI skilling and professional certification programmes
- AI Spring Enterprise: to drive AI adoption in local enterprises
- AI Spring Startups: to nurture core AI startups in Singapore
- AI Spring Communities: to contribute to community development with AI
- AI Spring Research and Development: to drive R&D for and with AI.
Elsie Tan, Country Manager, Worldwide Public Sector, Singapore, AWS. “By leveraging AWS’s broadest and deepest set of artificial intelligence and machine learning services, cloud infrastructure, and network, AWS will empower local organisations and students with technology and skills to tackle unique challenges, unlock new opportunities, delight customers, and scale in a secure, resilient, and sustainable manner.”
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According to a report by Access Partnership commissioned by AWS ‘Accelerating AI Skills: Preparing the Asia-Pacific Workforce for Jobs of the Future’, hiring AI-skilled talent is a priority for eight in 10 Singapore employers, but 74 per cent struggle to find the AI talent they need, highlighting a looming AI skills gap in the country.
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This article was first published on May 8, 2024
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