Microsoft has revealed two new training programs centered around tackling the shortage of AI related skills in business and academia.
Cindy Rose, Microsoft UK CEO, confirmed this recently, speaking at the Future Decoded event in London.
The company aims to train 500,000 citizens on artificial intelligence skills, offering both face-to-face and online sessions for IT professionals, businesspeople as well as public sector leaders.
This intense focus comes at a time when technology companies have reportedly tempted away scores of scientists with salaries that are two to three times larger than those offered by academia — this has resulted in an outflux of top academic talent to industry.
Which, understandably, is a concerning matter, as top academic professors and researchers are the ones responsible for nurturing the next generation of talent in this field.
Getting back to the programs, the first of the two is Microsoft AI Academy, designed to help develop practical AI skills, learning and certification for customers and partners.
The Redmond based company will also use the academy to train up its own staff, with the ultimate goal being to empower people and organizations to do more with artificial intelligence.
Beyond helping existing employees, Microsoft is also funding a multimillion-pound program to help train the next generation of data scientists and machine learning engineers.
Microsoft Research has put forth a machine learning initiative with Cambridge University that will address the stream of ML researchers moving from universities to the private sector. This program will see investments in PhD scholarships, post doctorate, internship and consultancy positions.
The company has promised to share more details about its new AI Academy in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, the technology giant is promoting its new Microsoft Learn platform that lets anyone get free training on Microsoft technologies.
