Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT has officially announced its collaboration with Google to run an artificial intelligence developer training program and conduct joint research, at an event held in Seoul on Thursday. The ministry says it aims to expand and globalize Korea’s AI industry by increasing R&D with the U.S. tech giant.
The number of trainees in Korea taking part in Google’s ‘Machine Learning Boot Camp’’ program will be expanded to 500 people from the current 200. Over 1,000 people will be certified annually through Google’s ‘Startup School’ program comprised of students, and prospective entrepreneurs.
Google is to introduce in Korea a new educational program for non-IT major university students or those with no IT-related job experience starting this year. The U.S. tech giant has also decided to select seven outstanding AI researchers from Korea to support their research projects regarding the optimization of machine learning models.
Google currently provides the Google Career Certificates(GCC) online education courses and job fairs for beginners that have no job experience or IT-related degree, at around 1,900 universities in more than 100 countries. Within six months of finishing the GCC program, seven out of ten alumni have stated the program had a favorable effect on their career, such as getting a raise or promotion.
This is the latest in a series of moves undertaken by the Korean government to promote the country’s position amid the AI boom. In February, the ICT Ministry announced the opening of a massive computing data center to help promote state-sponsored AI research initiatives such as deep learning, spatial-temporal reasoning, and speech synthesis.
Last month, the ministry unveiled the first phase of the ‘K-Cloud Project’ worth 826.2 billion won(US$ 648.4 million) aimed at the development of locally manufactured high-speed AI chips to rival Nvidia by 2030.
