YITU Technology today announced the launch of the YITU Singapore Research & Development Center. This is the company's first R&D center in Southeast Asia and it will play an important role in supporting innovation-led growth in Singapore and the region, reaffirming the company's commitment to deepen partnerships within the local AI ecosystem. According to the announcement, YITU sees Singapore as a critical hub for AI innovation as its advanced digital infrastructure, government support and talented STEM workforce have created a thriving AI ecosystem that promotes public, private and academic sector collaboration. In the initial phase, the focus of the YITU Singapore R&D Centre will be on developing AI solutions for smart buildings, enhancing natural language and speech processing technologies for commercial applications, and optimizing computer vision methods for medical diagnostics. An essential component of the center's activities will also include customizing AI applications to address specific local needs.

Microsoft Corp is focusing on Taiwanese specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) during its current recruitment season, a Microsoft Taiwan official said on Wednesday. Michael Chang (張仁烔), chief executive of the new Microsoft AI research and development center in Taiwan, said the company wants to recruit Taiwanese students because of the hard and soft skills that they possess. "Not only are some Taiwanese skilled at data analysis and coding, but they are also insightful, creative and good team players," Chang said. The talent pool is actually one of the main reasons that Microsoft decided to base its AI research and development center in Taiwan, he said. Microsoft Taiwan president Ken Sun (孫基康) told a news conference on Jan. 10 that the company planned to have a 100-person research team at the center within two years and double that number within five years, with a key focus on Chinese-language input for SwiftKey, user-intent technology and AI forward integration applications.