BORACAY, AKLAN — As the country takes strides in embracing artificial intelligence, an official of a multinational technology company, Lenovo, said low skills resulted to the nation lagging against its regional peers when it comes to AI use.

In his presentation at the CXO Summit on Friday, Singapore-based Lenovo Solutions Sales Director Kavish Shah, revealed that based on their latest CIO (chief information officer) study, around 42 percent of customers are exploring AI while 35 percent are using it.

“For the Philippine market, if you would ask me, I would say very few customers. Not more than five to 10 percent. From a Philippine standpoint, we have a long way to go in the AI space. Why? I would say there’s a problem or shortage of skills here,” according to Shah.

Further, he said workers with the right skills are the primary need in building out an AI solution.

X factor

“Skills are most lacking in today’s industries,” he said.

Because of this, he said businesses in the Philippines are missing the opportunity that AI can provide to the company’s operation.

“AI will allow you to enhance internal operations and customize your customer experience. The most important aspect of AI is helping companies understand the needs of your business, especially your customers,” stressed.

Apart from the skills gap, he said most organizations are skeptical about AI acquisition because of its complexities, the risks involved, and cost.

As Lenovo had utilized the full potential of AI in its operations, Shah said the company, by 2027, is looking for service sales of $49 billion just for servers.

“From our services standpoint, meaning installation, implementation, management, and so on, we are looking at $84 billion. For software, it’s huge, or about $225 billion. For the whole of 2027, we are aiming for total revenue of $408 billion. But as we continue to become the world’s largest end-to-end infrastructure solutions provider, Lenovo unleashes the power of AI to drive intelligent transformation in every aspect of our lives and every industry,” he said.

Government should intervene

Meanwhile, in a separate press conference, at the sidelines of the CXO Summit, Roshan Kumar, the director for Systems Engineering, AI, and Data Management at technology solutions firm Dell, suggests that the Philippine government should emulate what Singapore and other countries did in pushing students to be innovative and future-ready.

“The first focus of the government is sovereign AI — which is AI built for the nation, by the people. For that, they are investing in higher education, especially in technology and AI-related courses. And for the school’s perspective, the schools and universities are partnering with organizations like DELL and Intel, among others. We are not yet doing it in the Philippines, but we are doing it already in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore,” Kumar said.

Last month, IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines president Jack Madrid admitted that for the IT-BPM to grow, it needs to draw in talents with more advanced skills in AI, big data and programming.

To resolve this, Madrid said the sector is working with more universities and the Department of Education to bridge the skills gap among future Filipino workforce.