Opening the country to more opportunities.
In late November, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) turned over the Philippines’ Artificial Intelligence (AI) Readiness Assessment Report to the Philippines’ Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
Secretary Renato Solidum, Jr. officially received the report, and reflected on the opportunities this brings to the country in terms of technology.
“AI is opening tremendous opportunities for the Philippines. Through the National AI Strategy for the Philippines (NAIS-PH), we will ensure that AI innovation is accessible, ethical, and responsive to real societal needs,” Solidum said.
He added, “We warmly welcome the UNESCO AI Readiness Assessment Report and look forward to the strategic and inclusive collaborative efforts that will make the Philippines AI-ready.”
Solidum also noted that that the DOST is looking to invest over PHP9.9 billion for AI-related projects. These will cover healthcare, agriculture, industry, workforce development, environment, disaster risk reduction, data centers, and emerging technology platforms.
Notably, these investments will build on the prior investments between 2018-2024, which were able to finance over 100 AI research and development projects and upskilling initiatives. In line with this, the DOST is set to establish its own data center.
To push forward for better AI adoption, Sec. Solidum highlighted the department’s initiatives on AI, data, and other frontier technologies.
The list includes the Democratized Intelligent Model Exchange Repository (DIMER), which serves as a digital model store where agencies, researchers, and developers can access ready-to-use AI models tailored to Filipino challenges or share their own developed machine learning models.
The Computing and Archiving Research Environment (COARE) is a high-performance computing facility and complemented by the Philippine Research, Education, and Government Information Network (PREGINET).
To help Filipino startups and micro-, small-, and medium enterprises and democratize AI, the DOST has Advancing Computing, Analytics, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence in the Philippines Program (ACABAI-PH). This aims to provide accessible AI tools and pre-trained models to researchers, startups, and local government units across the nation, reducing the expenses and other needs for extensive infrastructure investments.
For her part, UNESCO Director and Representative Katsuno-Hayashikawa said, “It is critical for ethics to be the foundation of AI governance. It is what allows technology to remain connected to humanity, and what enables us to use knowledge as a force for inclusion and sustainable development.”
The handover event also highlighted the implementation of the AI Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM) in the Philippines, a tool that aims to measure the readiness of the countries to use AI ethically and responsibly for their citizens, led by UNESCO in partnership with the various sectors in the country.
Moving forward, the findings of the Philippines’ RAM Report can complement and support the development of NAIS-PH, the DOST furthered.