DOST wants AI in 10,000 small businesses in 2 years. The country has 1.24 million.
Science Secretary Renato Solidum Jr. says a program called CUATRO will send government engineers into small businesses one at a time, aiming to lift output by 25 to 30 percent.
The Department of Science and Technology said on Wednesday it wants 10,000 Philippine micro, small and medium businesses using artificial intelligence, robots and automation within the next two years. Science Secretary Renato U. Solidum Jr. set the target in his keynote at the Sustainability Expo 2026 in Taguig City, an event the agency ran with SM Prime Holdings and ARISE Philippines.
The program is called CUATRO, short for Connected and Unified Autonomous Technologies with Automation and RObotics. The method is deliberately slow. Government people sit with one business at a time, study how it actually runs, then work out which machines or software would pay off. DOST calls this a smart factory approach.
We want to scale up (their) productivity by 25% to 30%. We hope to target more than 10,000 MSMEs in the next two years.
Why it matters
This is aimed at the part of the economy most Filipinos actually work in. Government figures for 2023 count 1,241,733 micro, small and medium enterprises, which is 99.63 percent of every registered business in the country, and they employ 6.35 million people, about two thirds of all workers in registered firms. A small factory or a family shop cannot hire a consultant to tell it whether a robot arm or a demand forecasting tool is worth the money. That advice is what DOST is offering for free.
The menu is wider than robots. Businesses can pick from internet-connected sensors, data analytics, smart manufacturing systems, augmented and virtual reality, and security-ready digital setups. The hub for training and consultation is the AMERIAL lab at DOST's Metals Industry Research and Development Center in Taguig. Pilot sites are planned for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. GMA News reported Solidum also pointed businesses to SETUP, the older DOST program that lends seed money for equipment.
The catch to watch
Ten thousand businesses sounds big until you put it next to 1,241,733. It is roughly eight in every thousand. No budget figure was announced, no pilot site has been named beyond the three island groups, and there is no public sign-up page yet, so for now the way in is your regional DOST office. The deadline is also political. Solidum tied the target to the end of the Marcos administration, which means the program has to keep its funding through the next national budget to reach even that eight in a thousand.