The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AM­CHAM T&T) has signed a strate­gic agree­ment with the Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence In­no­va­tion Cen­tre (AI­IC) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, in a move aimed at ac­cel­er­at­ing ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence adop­tion and pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment across Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean.

The Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU), for­malised Tues­day at the AI­IC, sig­nals a deep­en­ing of col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the pri­vate sec­tor and acad­e­mia, with both sides tar­get­ing prac­ti­cal AI de­ploy­ment, in­no­va­tion, and gov­er­nance.

Un­der the agree­ment, the two in­sti­tu­tions will col­lab­o­rate on joint re­search, the de­vel­op­ment of cor­po­rate AI and cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty frame­works, na­tion­al pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions, and train­ing pro­grammes, in­clud­ing mi­cro-cre­den­tials and pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tives.

The part­ner­ship al­so in­cludes co-host­ed events, tech­ni­cal work­shops, and in­no­va­tion show­cas­es, with in­te­gra­tion in­to AM­CHAM’s Tech Hub Is­lands Sum­mit.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of AM­CHAM T&T, Ni­rad Tewarie, un­der­scored the im­por­tance of bridg­ing the gap be­tween in­no­va­tion and re­al-world ap­pli­ca­tion.

“A clos­er part­ner­ship be­tween in­dus­try and acad­e­mia rep­re­sents a pow­er­ful but still large­ly un­tapped op­por­tu­ni­ty to bridge the gap be­tween in­no­va­tion and re­al-world ap­pli­ca­tion. This col­lab­o­ra­tion will en­able our mem­bers and the wider pri­vate sec­tor to bet­ter un­der­stand, adopt, and scale AI-dri­ven so­lu­tions in a prac­ti­cal and re­spon­si­ble way.

By work­ing close­ly with one of the re­gion’s lead­ing cen­tres of ex­per­tise, we can sup­port stronger pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment, build dig­i­tal ca­pac­i­ty with­in com­pa­nies, and po­si­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go as a more com­pet­i­tive, fu­ture-ready econ­o­my,” Tewarie said.

Prin­ci­pal and Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor of the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, de­scribed the agree­ment as a shift to­ward re­gion­al own­er­ship of emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies.

“We wel­come this part­ner­ship with AM­CHAM T&T as a time­ly and im­por­tant col­lab­o­ra­tion that rep­re­sents a de­lib­er­ate shift from be­ing con­sumers of tech­nol­o­gy to be­com­ing cre­ators of re­spon­si­ble, in­dige­nous AI so­lu­tions shaped by our own re­al­i­ties. By part­ner­ing with AM­CHAM T&T, we are strength­en­ing the bridge be­tween aca­d­e­m­ic re­search and re­al-world ap­pli­ca­tion and en­sur­ing that AI de­vel­op­ment in the Caribbean is ground­ed in in­no­va­tion, ethics, and im­pact,” An­toine said.