Fortunately, the future for AI talent in the region looks bright, but we also need to upskill and reskill the current talent pool

Last week, The New York Times released wrote about the current state of AI talent and how Tech Giants are attracting some of the world’s top talent with large salaries. Deeper into the article, independent Canadian AI lab, Element AI, further quantifies just how little AI talent exists globally:

“Solving tough A.I. problems is not like building the flavour-of-the-month smartphone app. In the entire world, fewer than 10,000 people have the skills necessary to tackle serious artificial intelligence research.”

That 10,000 may not sound like a lot. But after reviewing the amount of LinkedIn profiles who claim to have skills related to AI, that represents about 0.095% of global talent who meet the standards which Element AI holds to “tackle serious artificial intelligence research”.

So how can companies in APAC even consider building a business or a practice around AI when only 1 in every 1,000 candidates is qualified? And supply isn’t the only challenge, since LinkedIn has identified AI skills as one of the top 3 in-demand skills and fastest growing in-demand skills, along with Big Data, and Cloud computing (“ABC”) in their recent study on The Digital Workforce of the Future.

The good news is that 87.6% of ABC talent is homegrown here in APAC, but the bad news is that we’re losing more (mostly to the US) than we’re gaining. So how much AI talent, specifically, is available in APAC?

APAC’s got talent

Digging a bit deeper into LinkedIn’s data, and searching for skills related to AI, APAC only has about 16% of the global AI talent pool, of which a large proportion a lot are being hired by large technology and consultancy companies. Some of the top ones who have hired the most AI talent in the past year include Infosys, Tata Consultancy, Amazon and Accenture.

As evident from the top companies, AI talent tends to join large companies. But in this fast-moving field with high demand, 99.9% of all Machine Learning and Deep Learning talent in APAC have been in their current position for less than 2 years, making these roles incredibly valuable but also incredibly fragile.

“99.9% of all Machine Learning and Deep Learning talent in APAC have been in their current position for less than 2 years.”

Despite large companies being grabbing the largest volume of AI candidates, startups and growing companies are still able to compete with them. Companies with less than 50 employees have hired an equitable proportion of AI talent as large companies with 200-1000, and even larger ones with 1001-5000 employees.

Also read: How to drop off your AI kids on their first day of school

The Future Supply of AI Talent

But demand isn’t just coming from businesses, it’s coming from consumers. Microsoft recently surveyed ‘young people’ across APAC to understand how they see the role of technology in their future lives. The #1 innovation they felt was going to have the greatest impact on their lives was AI. So are they getting involved in shaping it?

Fortunately, the future for AI talent in the region looks bright. Regionally, more than 65,000 students will graduate between 2017 and 2024 who will have the skills needed for future AI roles (and that’s just what is reported on LinkedIn). There are also many students who are educated in the UK, US and Australia who come back home after their studies who aren’t included in this number.

Whereas LinkedIn’s report cited India, Australia and China as the largest source of ABC talent, it looks like Malaysia and Singapore should also be highlighted for its contribution to AI talent.

As co-founder of a Conversational AI company in Malaysia (HYPERLAB), this was a very exciting finding. Malaysia for example, added another 4,000 graduates this year who have the skills to become Machine Learning Engineers.

Some of the top universities in APAC where future graduates will come from include Nanyang, National University of Singapore, University of New South Wales, Birla Institute of Tech, and the University of Mumbai.

EduTech is helping AI talent up-skill and re-skill

Institutional Universities are not the only ones who are training the future talent pool; Online education hubs like Udacity and Coursera are also contributing to it in a large way. Almost 10% of all recently training AI talent in 2017 was educated by an online learning platform – and there’s no sign of it slowing down.

“Almost 10% of all recently training AI talent in 2017 was educated by an online learning platform.”

Part of the reason for this rapid growth is that more experienced technical talent is taking the time to upskill themselves, with more than 42% of online learners in APAC having more than 6 years experience.

Having experienced developers upskill themselves in is incredibly important for building a pool of experienced and diverse AI talent in APAC who can tackle problems in a multitude of fields. To illustrate this you don’t have to look much further than the TechinAsia job board. On TIA, more than 250 AI related jobs have been posted, with at least one from each of their 90 different industry classifications. It’s this diversity in need that is a driving factor in the demand for AI talent.

Conclusion

Admittedly, this is not an exhaustive study and it depends largely on the penetration of LinkedIn in certain markets. But, it does generate some insight on what companies in APAC, especially smaller companies, need to do in order to attract, retain and grow their talent pipeline if they are to build an AI-based business or practise area.

Build a pipeline: Start your talent pipeline now. There are a lot of great graduates coming out of schools in the region who will be part of the future workforce who will be able to tackle serious AI challenges. If you’re small, don’t discount your ability to attract this talent.
Plan to retain, plan for turnover: These positions can have high turnover, so you need a strategy to retain and protect this talent from large Tech Giants and consultancy firms.
Online Learning: Don’t discount those with online learning credentials — most talent that you’ll have access to are new to this field. Upskilling existing employees with deep industry experience should also be a strategy you look at.

While Element AI may be correct in guessing the small pool of experienced AI talent today, the future looks bright for companies in APAC of all sizes … and they must think so too, since they’ve announced opening an office in Singapore.

If you have additional research on the current and future state of AI talent, share links below and contribute to the conversation.

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Chris is the CMO and Co-founder of HYPERLAB, helping innovative enterprises transform how they communicate with their customers using natural language processing and artificial intelligence.

HYPERLAB is also a recent recipient of a prestigious PlaTCOM Ventures’ Innovation and Commercialisation Grant.

All data in this report is from LinkedIn reports and user data in APAC.

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

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