The Singapore government has announced plans to upskill 100,000 workers to become “AI Bilingual,” as the technology continues to spread in a country that is already one of the world’s top artificial intelligence (AI) adopters.
“The Government will support 100,000 workers to become AI Bilingual. They will be pathfinders for meaningful AI upskilling, for others to emulate,” said Josephine Teo, Singapore’s Digital Development and Information Minister, speaking at the Committee of Supply Debate 2026.
“Not all of us can be AI engineers. But we can be ‘bilingual’ in AI and our own areas of expertise, and to solve problems in our domains,” she said, adding that “AI know-how, domain expertise and human touch are a powerful combination.”
The upskilling initiative will be part of a National AI Impact Programme, which comes as the city-state’s AI adoption reaches new heights.
Singapore was early to the AI party, placing third in a 2024 Global AI Index that measured countries’ total AI capacity (scale) and their AI capacity in terms of population and economy size (intensity), produced by Tortoise Media.
According to the ranking, Singapore’s third-place finish cemented its position as “Asia’s most dynamic AI hub after China,” scoring particularly highly in AI research and investment.
More recent data, reported by the Visual Capitalist in January, had Singapore second in global AI adoption, with 60.9% of the working-age population using AI. It attributed this position to the city-state’s early investment in AI infrastructure, research, and development.
The newly announced AI upskilling initiative aims to capitalize on this ever-growing wave of adoption.
“Our initial focus will be on professions that are highly exposed to AI, and serve multiple industries,” said Minister Teo.
She added that the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) would “develop AI Bilingual workers in key domains” by working with the relevant agencies and professional bodies to expand its ‘TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) programme’—a joint initiative between government and industry aimed at developing a skilled Information and Communications Technology workforce for Singapore’s digital economy.
“We will start with the Accountancy and Legal professions, and extend our reach to other fields such as HR,” Teo said. “We will therefore enhance the TeSA offerings to help tech workers move up the value chain, from writing code, to orchestrating end-to-end systems powered by AI agents.”
This latest announcement is in line with the Minister’s previous plans. In an interview with multinational strategy and management consulting firm McKinsey & Company in January, Teo said: “Our goal is to harness AI as a general-purpose technology to sustain wage growth and productivity improvements for Singapore.”
To achieve this, she said the MDDI would be focusing on three main spheres of activity: industry, research, and government.
“The government must ‘walk the talk,’ practice what it preaches, and have a good sense of what it takes to really level up AI capabilities,” Teo said. “Other enablers we work on include building workforce capabilities, fostering communities of practice, providing infrastructure (such as compute), and ensuring a pro-innovation regulatory environment that fosters trust.”
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Source: https://coingeek.com/singapore-aims-for-ai-bilingual-workforce/
