Source: NUS & OpenAI
The National University of Singapore (NUS) and OpenAI are expanding their partnership, giving the university community wider access to AI tools for learning, research, and work.
Source: NUS and OpenAI
In an announcement on 11 Aug, NUS and OpenAI said that all students, faculty members, and staff will get access to ChatGPT Edu and Codex, OpenAI’s coding agent, with enterprise-level security and controls.
The move comes as new research shows just how widely AI is already being used by university students in Singapore.
A survey of 514 students found that 94% use AI several times a week or more, while 55% use it multiple times a day.
Source: NUS and OpenAI
NUS will first pilot ChatGPT Edu in selected courses before introducing it more widely in undergraduate classes where it supports learning objectives.
Students will also get more opportunities to take part in hackathons and build days focused on real-world problems.
OpenAI’s tools will also complement NUS’s own AI-Know platform as the university expands its use of AI in a governed, secure, and sustainable way.
One example of how NUS researchers are already using OpenAI’s tools is Research Brain, a system built by NUS School of Computing postdoctoral researcher Gao Bin and his team.
The team had been spending considerable time searching for and organising information scattered across research papers, technical reports, white papers, blogs, and GitHub repositories.
Source: NUS and OpenAI
Using Codex and OpenAI models, they built a system that regularly finds, reads, and organises this material into one searchable knowledge base.
The side project was designed to make their main research easier, and OpenAI said building such a system manually would have required considerably more time and effort.
At a recent NUS School of Computing faculty hackathon supported by OpenAI, educators also used AI tools including Codex to prototype projects such as a Video Assessment Coach for student feedback and Continuum, a knowledge-graph tool for organising meeting notes, discussions, and decisions.
The survey also found that 95% of students wanted more opportunities to use advanced AI tools on real-world university projects, while 88% wanted to build an AI app, product, or company during university.
Another 35% said they had already built their own AI agent or assistant to help manage their studies, work, or personal lives.
Source: Tim Witzdam on Pexels, for illustration purposes only
Professor Aaron Thean, NUS Deputy President (Academic Affairs) and Provost, said the university sees such technologies “not as replacements, but as powerful amplifiers of human intellect, creativity, and judgment”.
The collaboration is also part of OpenAI for Singapore, the company’s multi-year partnership with the Singapore Government to expand access to AI and strengthen applied AI capabilities here.
As part of this wider push, OpenAI plans to hire more than 200 people in applied technology and technical-success roles in Singapore in the coming years.
OpenAI also highlighted NUS alumni Jordan Seow and Sharan Thangavel, who now work as Forward Deployed Engineers with the company in Singapore, as examples of how university talent can move into practical AI roles.
Source: NUS and OpenAI
OpenAI’s Managing Director, International, Oliver Jay, said Singapore has “an extraordinary opportunity to shape how AI contributes to education, research, and innovation”.
Also read: Nearly 1 in 4 S’pore workers use AI almost every day, but few see clear benefits: ADP report
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Featured image courtesy of NUS & OpenAI.