As the demand for AI capabilities continues to rise, enterprises are looking to beat the competition by attracting fresh talent from global universities. The global available software talent is ~2.6 million, of which only 300,000-320,000 is the total employable Big Data/ML talent. The tier-1 talent pool is around 80K tier-2 stands at 160,000 and tier-3 being ~27,000. The most sought-after courses among this talent pool are Big Data Analytics, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning.
Globally, over 300,000 fresh university ML/Big Data talent enters the workforce. Undergraduates make up 59% this workforce. Close to 62% of the total employable talent is graduating with B.E and B.Tech degrees in Computer Science. Universities in the US and the UK have a larger number of emerging courses compared to the rest of the world, with Robotics, Computer Science, NLP, AI & Manufacturing, and Neural Network being the more popular courses.
Universities are offering courses in AI/ML & Data Science with varying maturity levels. The lower end of the maturity spectrum consists of courses like Analogical Reasoning, Decision Theory, Logic Programming; intermediate courses include Cognitive Modelling, Computer Vision, and Robotics while advanced courses include AI & Manufacturing, AI & Legal Reasoning, Neural Networks, Integrated AI Architecture, and Intelligent Tutoring.
India and China have a high employable talent pool for AI and Big Data. The USA has a total talent pool of 40,000 with Uber, Amazon, Adobe, Google, and Microsoft being the top; China’s AI workforce size is close to 80,000 specializing in NLP, Computer Vision with Tencent. Baidu, Alibaba, Google, and Huawei are the top employers attracting university talent. Canada, Europe, Singapore are the other countries that have a fair share of talent in Big Data/AI.