More than 1,000 local small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and students in Singapore will receive practical training in generative AI and agentic AI through a one-year initiative by Alibaba Cloud, NTUC’s Tech Talent Assembly and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC).
Starting in June, up to 200 employees from NTUC Union companies will be eligible to register for tokens to access Alibaba Cloud’s generative AI tools, including Qwen and Wan, for use in content creation, multimodal reasoning, and data analysis.
Alternatively, participants can choose a one-month subscription to Qoder, Alibaba’s agentic AI coding platform, along with access to QoderWork, a desktop-based AI agent that can execute complex, multi-step workflows on a user's computer.
“The most important thing for us is upskilling for everyone. Not just for the SME workers, but also the students,” says Andy Lee, Alibaba Cloud Singapore Country Manager, at a media briefing on the sidelines of the company’s first Qwen Conference in Singapore.
The programme builds on a memorandum of understanding signed on Nov 26, 2025, between Alibaba Cloud and NTUC’s Tech Talent Assembly to support AI adoption and digital upskilling through workshops, technical bootcamps and curated learning pathways.
It will later be expanded to participants under IMDA’s Digital Enterprise Blueprint-Alibaba Cloud Digital Accelerator Programme, as well as ecosystem partners including SGTech, Singapore Computer Society, Digital Defenders Alliance Singapore and institutes of higher learning.
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Alibaba Cloud and STT GDC will also work with ecosystem partners to run hands-on workshops that show participants how to use the tools in business and learning scenarios. The initiative aims to help SMEs apply AI to areas such as content creation, coding, workflow automation, customer engagement and business productivity.
This Alibaba Cloud partnership sits under NTUC’s broader AI-Ready SG effort, which was launched in February to help workers move from AI awareness to workplace use through training, career guidance and job redesign.
“Tools can be deployed at the click of a button, but progress only happens when people know how to use them, improve them, and trust them,” says Desmond Tan Kok Ming, Senior Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office and NTUC Deputy Secretary-General, at the same conference.
