Bringing AI Skills Everywhere: A call to action for public-private partnerships

By Bruce Andrews, Corporate Vice President and Chief Government Affairs Officer at Intel

We are at a pivotal moment for AI technology where the AI industry must provide an opportunity for the global community to have access, visibility, transparency, and trust. Intel believes that bringing AI everywhere is key for businesses and society to flourish, and this requires providing access to AI skills for all, regardless of location, ethnicity, gender, or background. In 2020, we committed to collaborating with 30 countries and 30,000 educational and government institutions to skill 30 million people for current & future jobs by 2030. As of today, we are well on our way, having engaged with 27 countries and 23,000 institutions, and trained 5.6 million people worldwide.

Intel plays an important role in bringing AI everywhere. Intel’s products, both hardware and software, help to solve today's most complex challenges. For example, in medicine, Intel technology helps accelerate research and improve patient outcomes with faster, more accurate analysis across precision medicine, medical imaging, and lab automation. In industry, we transform data into insights that help our customers optimize plant performance, minimize downtime, improve safety, and drive profitability.

Intel is committed to advancing AI technology responsibly and contributing to the development of principles, international standards, best practices, tools, and solutions to enable a more responsible, inclusive, and sustainable future. Bringing AI everywhere means bringing AI skills everywhere and to everyone. But this cannot be achieved in isolation; it requires a robust public-private partnership ecosystem.

We call on governments, academia, civil society, and industry to come together to equip the next generation of developers and innovators with the necessary AI skills. This includes both technical skills, such as computer vision and generative AI, as well as relevant social skills like understanding AI biases, ethics, and accessibility frameworks. In our “shared value, shared responsibility” program portfolio, Intel® Digital Readiness, we have more than 50 exemplary public-private partnerships with AI Change Leaders who are helping to advance AI skills. Our new compendium of these AI Change Leaders shows how governments and academia are working with us to bring AI everywhere.

For example, in the U.S., the American Association of Community Colleges is collaborating to scale the AI for Workforce program nationwide to build readiness for increasingly AI-centered jobs. In India, the Ministry of Electronics and IT is working with us to build the AI awareness of 10 million citizens through the AI for Citizens program. In Africa, we have brought AI for Youth to Ghana schools and are expanding the AI for Future Workforce program in South Africa’s technical schools.

This week September 13-20th, we are celebrating the Intel® AI Global Impact Festival, where student innovators, educators, governments, and all can come join us to celebrate, learn more about and witness the excellence of AI innovations from around the world. We envision a world in which the public-private ecosystem comes together with focused leadership, resources, and infrastructure required to help everyone, especially the next generation, to take full benefits from AI as a new superpower. Let us amplify our global collaboration and multiply the impact with deeper partnerships to bring AI skills to everyone. Intel is with you in this new and exciting journey to bring AI everywhere.