Firm sending Pinoys for AI training in US

MANILA, Philippines — A local innovation firm founded by a former PLDT Inc. executive has invested $1 million to put up an academy that aims to train Filipinos for employment in tech giants in the US.

Local innovator Amihan Global Strategies Inc. yesterday launched its own program that seeks to develop forward deployed engineers (FDEs), which are becoming more in-demand in the US.

Amihan chairman Winston Damarillo said the academy hopes to make the Philippines a popular source of FDEs for tech giants in the US.

Citing data from leadership advisor Christian & Timbers, Damarillo said the share of companies planning to hire FDEs has gone up to 70 percent as of June. This is far from the initial forecast of just 10 percent at the start of the year.

As such, Damarillo said Amihan wants to take advantage of the growing demand. It is eyeing to make its graduates ready for hiring in the US, where there are only 2,000 FDEs.

FDEs, simply put, are specialists in artificial intelligence (AI) that developers like Anthropic and Google assign to their clients to build specific solutions for them.

Amihan’s FDE academy hosts a pool of 50 engineers trained in AI, and 22 of them are certified to manage solutions made by Anthropic, the developer of ChatGPT’s rival Claude.

Damarillo, who used to be PLDT’s chief strategy officer, expects the world to take notice of the Philippines as an origin of FDEs if it is able to train at least 1,000 of them.

Amihan is spending about $1 million to launch the academy. The investment covers the creation of a courseware that follows the designs and frameworks of AI giants in the US.

The program will begin on Nov. 24, running four sessions in two weeks. Amihan partnered with some of the world’s tech leaders in building AI tools, including Anthropic and SpaceXSI.

For the initial run of the program, Amihan signed an agreement with the Department of Science and Technology to provide FDE training for local engineers and scientists.

The program, which costs P50,000 per person, will be marketed to the country’s most reputable engineering schools like Mapua University in a bid to prepare them for global deployment.

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