ASME and ITE set up AI Centre of Excellence
By Amit Roy Choudhury
Complimentary workshops and resources will be offered at SME@AiTE to support SMEs in adopting artificial intelligence tools and workflows.
Singapore’s Senior Minister of State, Dr Janil Puthucheary, said the SME@AiTE was part of the initiatives being taken by the government to help bridge the gap between AI innovation and SME growth. Image: MDDI
The Association of Small & Medium Enterprises (ASME) and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) have launched an AI Centre of Excellence, named SME@AiTE.
The centre is designed to provide small and medium enterprises (SMEs) access to artificial intelligence (AI) resources, knowledge, and implementation strategies.
SME@AiTE, housed within ITE College Central, will host free downloadable AI resources and hands-on workshops, helping SMEs understand and experiment with integrating AI technology into their business operations in a risk-free environment.
Singapore’s Senior Minister of State, Dr Janil Puthucheary, said the centre was part of initiatives being taken by the government to help bridge the gap between AI innovation and SME growth.
The Minister noted that SMEs “are the bedrock and foundation of our economy", adding that they represent almost all the enterprises employing about 70 per cent of Singapore’s workforce.
“This [centre of excellence] will help SMEs move past conceptualisation into the actual implementation - integrating AI technology into their business operations,
“We must do all this and think about how we interface the technologies with our businesses and the processes with our services,” Dr Janil said.
He added that business advisors would be available to guide SMEs through relevant government support programmes such as IMDA’s GenAI Sandbox for SMEs, ensuring that SMEs get the necessary assistance and take full advantage of AI solutions.
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“Their [SME] dynamism, resilience, and innovation have been vital in keeping our economy vibrant, creating opportunities for us here in Singapore and for Singaporeans to have access to jobs. This will continue to be so going into the future,” Dr Janil added.
This initiative is part of ASME’s broader commitment to shaping AI policies and driving tangible change for SMEs.
SME@AiTE will offer complimentary, sector-specific AI workshops tailored to industries such as F&B, HR, Accounting, Retail, Engineering, and Logistics.
These hands-on sessions will enable SMEs to experiment with Generative AI (GenAI) solutions, explore practical applications, and simulate real-world business integration.
To further support AI adoption, SMEs will have access to free proprietary GenAI workflows and distilled models, allowing them to seamlessly incorporate AI into their operations.
General-purpose technology
Dr Janil noted that AI is not necessarily about complex, futuristic technologies or robotics - things that are in science fiction and the movies.
“It is also about leveraging smart tools, improving our productivity, driving innovation - things that many business owners and people within the economy have been talking about,” the Minister said.
Noting that general-purpose technology has an impact across the economy, Dr Janil highlighted that AI has become such a technology just like internet communications in recent decades.
“The value in general-purpose technology comes out when it is applied to industries and domains across the economy, improving business processes, transforming operations, and creating value through new products and services. So, competition between businesses will go beyond price and proximity, and our SMEs will need to be prepared for this,” he added.
Beyond training and resources, SME@AiTE will function as a key data collection point. By gathering insights from SMEs on real-world use cases and challenges, the centre will be better able to help shape future AI initiatives and policies, a joint release by ASME and ITE said.
In addition to empowering SMEs, the centre will also serve as a platform for youth employability, providing ITE students with hands-on exposure to AI-driven business solutions through internships and industrial attachments.
Through engagements with SMEs on real-world AI projects, students will gain invaluable experience and enhance their career prospects in AI and digital sectors - eventualy becoming very competent and impactful AI users.
AI empowering neighbouring countries
ASME president, Ang Yuit, noted that AI has empowered SMEs “in our neighbouring countries with the potential to produce output that can rival the quality of work from Singapore’s skilled workforce”.
It’s not just copywriters and graphic design that will be disrupted, but data analysis, financial modelling, legal advice and software engineering that will face changes too, he added highlighting the impetus for SMEs in Singapore to embrace AI technology in an even deeper fashion to keep pace with global innovation
“This will help SMEs to understand AI applications in their business segments before embarking deeper on their customised AI adoption journeys. We are excited to partner with ITE to create an ecosystem where SMEs can confidently experiment, adopt, and customise AI innovations,” Ang said.
ITE’s CEO, Low Khah Gek, added that the launch of the AI Centre of Excellence “reflects ITE's commitment to empower and enable our SMEs by providing accessible AI resources and hands-on training”.
We support SMEs in enhancing their workforce capabilities and conversely, the SMEs partner ITE to prepare our students with work-ready and future-ready skills. This ITE-ASME collaboration will create an ecosystem where innovation thrives, Low added.