Technology company Amihan Global Strategies is investing about $1 million for its newly launched Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) Academy, which aims to pool 1,000 to 2,000 local professionals and position the Philippines as a global supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) talent, GMA News reported on November 5, 2026. FDEs are software engineers who work directly inside enterprises or organizations to build AI or software solutions that run in production. "About a million dollars we will allocate," Amihan chairman Winston Damarillo told reporters at the FDE Academy's launch in Makati City on Friday, saying the investment is almost like building software and that the company will invest R&D on the training, not just for its use but to make sure it's propagated. Damarillo said the company has about 22 prompt engineers and about 50 engineers who are trained and certified, and aims to reach about "100 by the end of the year." Through partnerships with universities, he said Amihan expects to develop a "pool" of 1,000 to 2,000 FDEs for the country. "The first mission is to make sure that the world knows that there's a healthy and abundant supply of FDEs in the Philippines," Damarillo said. The United States will be the primary market for these engineers, he said. "Once we cross a thousand certified FDEs in the country, people will take notice. There's only about