Sri Lankan President Instructed Experts to Promote AI Tech Taking Two Asian Countries as Models

On 30 April, President Ranil Wickremesinghe urged Sri Lankans IT professionals to promote the artificial intelligence (AI) technology field, taking Singapore and India as role models.

During his presidential talk, he enforces AI experts to generate a concept paper for promoting AI usage, as the two Asian countries are currently doing.

He added that Singapore and India should serve as models in terms of artificial intelligence. While East Asia, specifically South Korea, Japan, and China, are making strides in artificial intelligence, no West Asian nation has yet to do so.

According to the president of Sri Lanka, the nation wants to generate a digital economy and satisfy the demands of the digital age by producing 10,000 engineers annually as opposed to the current rate of 2,500.

During his address, he also emphasized the potential of AI in several industries, including farming, education, health care, fishing, and business.

He said we had highlighted the upgrading of supply centers, modernization of agriculture and fisheries, and tourism as urgent development sectors in our economic reforms with paying more attention to the technology sector.

Currently, computer and information technology contribute about $1.9 billion annually to Sri Lanka’s national economy, with no specific figures for AI technology.

He instructed officials to take action on increasing AI field contribution to the gross domestic product in the upcoming years and develop a system for active monitoring of AI contributions.

Concluded by inviting the private sector to participate and announcing Rs 1 billion for AI technology next year.