Singapore to spend 1 billion SGD developing AI in five years

Singapore - Singapore’s plan to invest more than 1 billion SGD (743 million USD) in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next five years could strengthen its position as a global business and innovation hub, tech executives said as reported by CNBC.

According to the news site, Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced the plan in his recent Budget speech last week. He noted that as part of the investment, Singapore will work to ensure it can secure access to the advanced chips, while working with leading companies here and around the world to set up AI centres of excellence to spur innovation.

“This initiative will help ensure that businesses can capitalise on the opportunities afforded by technological advancements and capture new opportunities,” Nithin Chandra, managing partner of Southeast Asia at Kearney, a global management consulting firm, said as quoted by CNBC.

“This will incentivise companies to adopt AI solutions, prioritise AI skills to keep their workforce competitive, and encourage strategic partnerships and knowledge sharing across the industry, thus spurring overall innovation,” said Jonathon Dixon, vice president and managing director of APAC at Cloudflare, a global cloud services provider.

Singapore workers are already the world’s fastest when it comes to adopting AI skills, as per LinkedIn’s Future of Work report released in August.

According to CNBC, Singapore was among the first countries to publish an AI plan in 2019. In December, the Southeast Asian nation launched the National AI Strategy 2.0 — an updated version of its AI initiatives, outlining ways to prepare the economy to harness and utilise AI to empower workers and businesses.

This time last year, I wrote that 2023 would be a momentous year for Vietnam and Singapore’s relationship. We were all ready to celebrate the 50 years anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relationship and the 10 years since the establishment of a strategic partnership between the two countries.

Anticipating the importance of inclusive Generative AI models, AI Singapore is collaborating with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to produce the region's first Large Language Model family trained for Southeast Asian languages and cultures.