Singapore targets 100,000 AI-bilingual workers by 2029

Josephine Teo, minister for digital development and information, speaking during a budget debate on March 2, said Singapore aims to train about 100,000 AI-bilingual workers by 2029.

She added that the National AI Impact Programme is expected from the first half of 2026 and will equip 10,000 enterprises with AI skills over three years.

The Infocomm Media Development Authority will expand its TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA), launched in 2016, to offer tailored AI fluency courses for accountancy and legal professionals initially, with more fields such as human resources to follow.

Sector programmes slated for the first half of 2026 will teach accountants AI for financial reporting and compliance monitoring, and lawyers AI tools for research, document review, and contract management, while covering responsible AI use and data governance, according to MDDI and IMDA.

IMDA will launch a Digital Leaders Accelerator Bootcamp, and the Productivity Solutions Grant will include a higher proportion of AI-enabled solutions – 50%, up from 30% – the announcement said.

IMDA’s Singapore Digital Economy Report found AI adoption rose in 2024 to 14.5% among SMEs (up from 4.2% in 2023) and to 62.5% among bigger companies (up from 44% in 2023).

🔗 Source: The Straits Times

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

The training push extends beyond Singapore’s tech workforce

The goal is to build “bilingual” workers who pair domain expertise with AI fluency for day-to-day problem solving 1.
This marks a change for the TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) programme, which since 2016 has helped mid-career workers move into new tech roles and has helped the existing tech workforce stay relevant, and it now targets non-tech jobs such as accountancy and law, with human resources expected later 1.

This is a blueprint for preventing an AI-driven economic divide

The programme serves as a policy response to fears that AI could follow earlier technology waves where a small group of frontier companies surge ahead while smaller, less-resourced businesses lag and risk falling behind 1.
The government raised the share of AI-enabled tools in the Productivity Solutions Grant to 50%, up from 30%, and added a Digital Leaders Accelerator Bootcamp for business leaders to ease adoption, after IMDA put AI adoption among SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) at 14.5% in 2024 1.
The plan assumes organizational readiness slows AI uptake more than the technology itself 2.
Training domain experts to use AI tools well helps catch errors in outputs and supports business process redesign 1.