Singapore allocates over €690 million to enhance AI capabilities in five years
Singapore aims to boost its artificial intelligence (AI) development by allocating over one billion Singaporean dollars (€690 million) in investment plans over the next five years, according to Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.
In his budget speech last week, Wong described AI as a critical emerging technology.
“AI is not just about chatGPT or large language models. It is a general-purpose technology like electricity, the internal combustion engine, the computer or the Internet,” Wong said. “It has the potential to transform a wide range of industries and to enhance productivity across many existing processes.”
Wong noted that the Southeast Asian country is already recognised as a serious player in AI development.
“We aim to go further to build new peaks of excellence and crowd in private sector investments,” Wong said. “We have set out the plans to do so in the National AI Strategy 2.0.”
The Deputy Prime Minister said part of the investment will be used to ensure that Singapore can secure access to the advanced chips that are crucial to AI development and deployment.?
“We will also work with leading companies in Singapore and around the world to set up their AI centres of excellence here. We want these centres to spur industry collaboration and innovation and drive greater value creation across the whole economy,” he said.
Advancing AI technology
In 2019, Singapore became one of the first countries in the world to have an AI plan.
The city-state introduced AI Verify in May 2022 – the world’s first AI governance testing framework and software toolkit for companies.
Last year, it launched an updated version of its AI strategy, outlining ways to harness and use the technology for economic empowerment.
Upgrading Singapore’s broadband network
Wong also laid out plans to allocate additional resources to catalyse investments in upgrading Singapore’s nationwide broadband network.
“With the additional investments, we aim to enable mass market access to broadband speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second in the second half of this decade. This is 10 times faster than the broadband speed in most homes today,” Wong said.
“This also ensures that our connectivity infrastructure will be able to support technologies like AI and immersive media as they become more pervasive in the future.
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