AI Singapore

AI Singapore (AISG) is the national artificial intelligence programme of Singapore, launched in May 2017 by the National Research Foundation (NRF) with an initial commitment of SGD 150 million over five years. The programme brings together Singapore's research institutions, agencies, and industry to develop AI capabilities, train talent, build deployable AI solutions for enterprises, and contribute to international AI research and governance discussions. AI Singapore is hosted at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and operates in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), and other partners.

Mission and Structure

AI Singapore's mission is to anchor deep national capabilities in artificial intelligence, grow the local talent pipeline, accelerate AI adoption in Singapore's economy, and position Singapore as a globally credible AI hub. The programme is organised around several pillars, including AI research grants, the AI Apprenticeship Programme, the 100 Experiments (100E) industry deployment programme, AI Bricks for reusable building blocks, AI Governance, and dedicated efforts in Southeast Asian languages and applied research. A second phase of funding, announced under Singapore's Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2025 plan, expanded the programme's scope and budget to support broader translation of research into deployable systems and to scale workforce training.

Key Programmes

AI Apprenticeship Programme

The AI Apprenticeship Programme (AIAP) is a structured nine-month full-time programme that trains mid-career professionals and recent graduates to become AI engineers. Apprentices spend the first two months in classroom training before being deployed onto real industry projects under AI Singapore's 100E programme. The programme has produced several cohorts of apprentices working at Singapore and regional enterprises, contributing to Southeast Asia's AI talent pool.

100 Experiments

The 100 Experiments (100E) programme co-funds applied AI projects between Singapore-based enterprises and AI Singapore's engineering teams. Projects target specific business problems — such as customer churn prediction, document understanding, or computer vision quality control — and deliver working AI systems alongside knowledge transfer to participating companies. The programme has produced dozens of completed deployments across logistics, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail.

SEA-LION (Southeast Asian Languages in One Network)

SEA-LION, launched in 2023, is an open-source family of large language models tailored to Southeast Asian languages including Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, Thai, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Burmese, Khmer, and Lao. The models are trained on a multilingual corpus assembled with regional partners and are released openly to encourage adoption by enterprises and researchers across ASEAN. SEA-LION addresses a gap left by general-purpose English-dominant LLMs, which often underperform on the morphologically and culturally rich languages of Southeast Asia.

AI Governance and Ethics

AI Singapore participates in international AI governance discussions including the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), the OECD AI working groups, and ASEAN-level workstreams. It contributed to the development of the Model AI Governance Framework published by Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the AI Verify testing toolkit for AI assurance.

International and Regional Collaboration

AI Singapore engages with national AI programmes, research labs, and industry partners across Asia, Europe, and North America. Regional collaborations include joint research projects with universities and AI organisations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, with a particular emphasis on shared challenges such as low-resource languages, tropical disease modelling, and smart-city applications adapted to Southeast Asian contexts.

Outcomes and Recognition

AI Singapore has been credited with significantly expanding Singapore's AI capabilities since its founding. It has trained hundreds of AI engineers through the AIAP, delivered numerous industry deployments through 100E, contributed open-source models including SEA-LION, and established Singapore as a leading AI policy and research voice in the region. AI Singapore is a significant regional reference point for Malaysia's national AI agenda. Both countries share economic interdependence — Singapore is one of Malaysia's largest trading partners — and a common interest in developing AI capabilities suited to ASEAN's languages, cultures, and economic structures. Malaysia's MyDigital Blueprint, the National AI Roadmap (AI-RMAP) 2021–2025 published by MOSTI, and the establishment of the National AI Office Malaysia draw lessons from AI Singapore's model of national coordination across research, industry, and talent. The SEA-LION family of multilingual models developed by AI Singapore directly benefits Malaysian developers building Bahasa Malaysia applications, since the models include training data covering Malay corpora and produce reasonable quality on Bahasa Melayu prompts. Malaysian universities including Universiti Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and Universiti Sains Malaysia have collaborated with NUS, NTU, and A*STAR on joint research in computer vision, natural language processing, and AI for tropical agriculture. Malaysian companies and government agencies, including the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), and the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC), participate in regional AI dialogues alongside Singaporean counterparts under the ASEAN Digital Ministers Meeting (ADGMIN), the ASEAN AI Working Group, and the Bali Process digital cooperation streams. The ASEAN Guide on AI Governance and Ethics, finalised in 2024, was developed jointly by all ten ASEAN member states with substantial input from both Singapore's IMDA and Malaysia's MDEC and NACSA. Talent mobility between the two countries remains significant: many Malaysian AI engineers work in Singapore-based companies, while Singapore-based Malaysians frequently return to contribute to Malaysian AI initiatives. Cross-border programmes such as the Singapore-Malaysia Joint Committee for Business Cooperation and the Iskandar-Singapore corridor planning include AI and digital economy workstreams, with Malaysian states of Johor and Selangor working with Singaporean partners on AI in logistics, smart cities, and cross-border data flows.

1. AI Singapore. (2024). Annual Report 2023/2024. Singapore: AI Singapore, National University of Singapore.
2. National Research Foundation Singapore. (2021). Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 Plan. Singapore: NRF.
3. AI Singapore. (2023). SEA-LION: Southeast Asian Languages in One Network. Technical Report.
4. ASEAN Secretariat. (2024). ASEAN Guide on AI Governance and Ethics. Jakarta: ASEAN.
5. MOSTI Malaysia. (2021). National Artificial Intelligence Roadmap (AI-RMAP) 2021–2025. Putrajaya: MOSTI.