Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and Nvidia have entered a three-year partnership to collaborate in enhancing AI training for ITE students, through a jointly developed AI workforce readiness programme.
This involves the establishment of an AI training facility at ITE College Central, which hosts Nvidia’s supercomputing platform. Called AiTE, it serves as a living lab where students can work with companies to co-develop AI solutions which address business needs. This will be the first facility at ITE which enables students to work directly on real-world AI projects.
Minister for education Chan Chun Sing officiated the launch of the AI Workforce Readiness Programme at ITE College Central, where he also viewed a showcase of Nvidia powered AI applications which support students’ learning.
Building AI capabilities and talents
Besides nurturing young AI talents, the AI workforce readiness programme aims to drive the adoption of AI among companies in Singapore and create related job opportunities. Through the programme, companies can use AiTE to explore and develop AI solutions that meet their digitalisation needs. Students from ITE’s AI-related courses will have the opportunity to participate in such industry projects and play an active role in areas such as data collection and annotation for AI model training.
Nvidia will also be training ITE lecturers as its certified instructors, who will in turn deliver Nvidia’s AI curriculum to students. Close to 400 students will benefit from the partnership each year.
Ms Low Khah Gek, chief executive officer of ITE, said, “AI is a key driver of Singapore’s digital economy and smart nation vision. More companies are also seeking to reap gains in productivity through AI. With the strong push towards AI, there is a strong demand for skilled AI talents. 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.”
Mr Dennis Ang, senior director, enterprise business, SEA and ANZ region, Nvidia worldwide field operations, said, “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.”
Capable of processing data and performing complex calculations at high speeds, supercomputers are widely used for the development of AI applications.
