The American technology giant Microsoft is rolling out a plan to give an AI course to 600,000 Belgians by 2028. This should benefit SMEs, students and vulnerable groups, but also Microsoft itself, report De Tijd and L’Echo Wednesday.
An important aspect of the so-called AI National Skilling Initiative (Ainsi) is an online course, developed in collaboration with the Spanish e-learning company Founderz, which lasts eight hours and is quite available for everyone. Via the BeCode programming school is used for vulnerable groups. For Walloon SMEs, an appeal is made to the MIC, a private-public collaboration between Microsoft, Proximus and the Walloon Region. And the Hogeschool will distribute an AI curriculum among the affiliated Flemish colleges.
What’s in for Microsoft? Part of the answer lies in the billion -dollar investment that has done in recent years in data centers in our country. They can deliver the computing power and data storage that AI models need. “The infrastructure is now there. But to fully utilize the potential, there is a need for extra skilling”, Says Marijke Schroos, the general manager of Microsoft Belux.