Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently launched a new program aimed at helping small- and medium-sized businesses build competencies in areas like artificial intelligence (AI), the cloud, and other skillsets to be more competitive. ""Small businesses often don’t have the technical resources, depth, or maybe experience; think migrations or AI is a perfect example; they’re not necessarily going to have a data scientist on staff,"" said Ben Schreiner, U.S. head of business innovation for SMB at AWS. ""So our partner network for AWS is incredibly important to helping those customers be successful, realizing whatever their strategy is, or even experimenting with some of these new technologies."" AWS’ competency program leverages the specialties of partner companies that have experience helping smaller businesses implement technical solutions. The program launched with 30 initial partners, including 17 based in the U.S., that can provide a variety of services for SMBs.