Fujitsu Ltd. and companies like it are struggling with a shortage of technology workers, the company’s Chief Technology Officer Vivek Mahajan said, a crunch that could hit the rollout of new artificial intelligence and other applications.
(Bloomberg) — Fujitsu Ltd. and companies like it are struggling with a shortage of technology workers, the company’s Chief Technology Officer Vivek Mahajan said, a crunch that could hit the rollout of new artificial intelligence and other applications.
“The talent crunch is in all areas and particularly felt since speed is key,” Mahajan said in a presentation on the Tokyo-based technology company’s research and development strategy on Wednesday. For example, Fujitsu is struggling to find experienced engineers who specialize in chipmaking to work on the Fujitsu-Monaka semiconductor, which is set to be the company’s first 2-nanometer processor and is due to debut in 2026, he said.
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The popularity of services such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT has created an unprecedented demand for AI solutions and the infrastructure needed to run them. Industries such as finance, health care and entertainment, as well as smaller technology companies, have found themselves competing for AI talent with Silicon Valley’s deep-pocketed giants.
Fujitsu has scoured the globe, hiring in India, Israel, Spain, the US and the UK, looking for specialized workers who have advanced degrees and a “different mindset for cutting-edge research and newer technologies,” Mahajan said. More than half of the company’s 300 dedicated AI experts have doctorates, he said.
“We aren’t rich like our friends in the West Cost – Amazon, Google, Microsoft – so we have to be very selective in the technology areas we compete,” Mahajan said.
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