China’s telecommunications giant Huawei announced plans on Friday for a three-year talent development program that will see one billion yuan (144 million U.S. dollars) invested to cultivate one million artificial intelligence (AI) specialists, reports Chinanews.com.
The announcement was made at this year’s Huawei Connect conference, where Huawei’s Vice President Zheng Yelai said, “We have assembled a professional team to carry out the plan, and we have cooperated with many elite universities in China in order to develop a better AI curriculum.” He also said that some overseas universities will join the program in the future, and that Huawei will invest more money if it’s required.
Fostering talent has always been one of Huawei’s priorities when it comes to developing its AI strategy. Zheng said that Huawei provides employees with free training on AI, and held its Worldwide Developers Conference to improve their AI engineering skills. “AI will be a basic skill set for engineers,” Zheng said.
According to a recent report by the Tencent Research Institute, the world is short 700,000 AI specialists. Only 367 universities offer AI majors, and less than 20,000 students graduate with an AI major each year.
