Google Cloud and Singapore launch $500,000 AI incentive for 300 enterprises

SINGAPORE – Google’s cloud unit has joined forces with the Government to outlay benefits worth $500,000 to each of 300 selected local companies in a bid to promote the use of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) solutions.

The AI Cloud Takeoff, as the initiative is called, provides technical guidance, Google training resources and cloud services credits to help firms build in-house AI expertise and broaden their AI pilots into core operations.

Companies must be locally registered or incorporated in Singapore, commit at least three employees with tech background for at least six months, have formal support from a business leader, and have at least one AI use case ready to be worked on.

The use case will be evaluated by Digital Industry Singapore (DISG), the government arm driving the programme, which is the first to take wing under the $150 million Enterprise Compute Initiative announced in the 2025 Budget.

The initiative aims to encourage companies to partner cloud providers to accelerate enterprise AI and cloud adoption.

A key feature is a two-week AI capacity-building boot camp with Google Cloud’s experts to help firms set up AI centres of excellence within six months.

Singapore has at least 26 of these centres, which concentrate innovation, experimentation, training, coordination and evaluation.

Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry Low Yen Ling said at the launch ceremony for the new programme that the Government hopes to have about 100 such centres, each serving as a catalyst for broader industry transformation.

Mr Mitesh Agarwal, Google Cloud’s regional managing director for solutions and technology, told The Straits Times: “When people develop centres of excellences, the rubber hits the road.

“That’s when you start realising that hiring technical staff – AI engineers, machine learning engineers – and retaining them, keeping them motivated, is not easy.”

Selected firms can consult seven advisory companies –­ Accenture, AsiaPac, CloudMile, Deloitte, Kyndryl, NTT Data and Searce – to help them take their data exploration and experimentation stages to model training, deployment, performance monitoring and optimisation.

Participants have six months to set a budget and turn out at least one viable AI solution. The grant will be disbursed in tranches as each milestone is hit.

Mr Andy Welsh, chief technology officer at fintech firm Embed, which joined the programme pilot, urged firms to pick existing problems when formulating their viable use case. “You have people watching the problem and complaining about it. You get feedback quicker and you get results quicker. Don’t invent a problem. Stick to something that’s already nagging you.”

The $500,000 grant comprises an estimated $105,000 to subsidise 70 per cent of consultancy service costs, $200,000 for training credits and certifications, and $195,000 for cloud credits.

Mr Agarwal said the last tranche is designed to encourage firms to take the final step – deployment.

He said: “When you deploy in a real world environment, that’s where the (cloud) consumption goes up based on usage of your own customers.”

Google Cloud, the world’s third-largest cloud services provider by market share, estimates that a $150,000 budget set aside by companies would be enough for them to produce at least one viable solution.

It added that firms applying for the programme do not need to be current Google customers. It is also prepared to support more enterprises if more than 300 apply.

The new scheme replaces Google’s 2023 AI Trailblazers programme that graduated 213 firms at early stages of AI adoption. All are now Google’s customers, said Mr Agarwal.

Firms were too wary of security and quality issues to adopt AI then, but the market is now more mature, with many companies having already tried and adopted at least one enterprise AI solution, he said.

Supply chain solutions firm YCH Group, investment platform Endowus and software company Polybee are also among the 30 firms that have been trialling the new programme since late 2024.

YCH is taking its new AI-powered document processing and cargo scanning solutions to use in the Vietnam SuperPort. It plans to introduce the tool progressively in supply chain cities in Singapore and Malaysia.

Container leasing company Seaco put up 30 AI use cases for the pilot. About six weeks ago, it started using AI to identify damaged containers at Tuas Depot.

Mr Damian Leach, its chief information officer, said the automation has reduced inspection times from days and weeks to a matter of minutes. Savings are expected to be around $10 million annually at least.

He said: “We interface with over 500 ports and depots across the world. A lot of these ports and depots are in emerging markets, and as you would imagine, the technology in those emerging markets isn’t that mature. So for us, the depot process was a critical function that we wanted to automate.”

Embed, which provides services for entertainment complexes such as Timezone game arcades, introduced its AI kiosk solution in the US to personalise game recommendations and themes based on customer preferences. It is also able to direct customers to less performing games in an arcade.

Embed’s Mr Welsh said: “The cool part about this is that this AI says these games are underperforming at the moment, we need to drive more traffic that way.”

Companies can apply at

http://goo.gle/AICTOProgram

They can also contact Google Cloud at

AI.CTO@google.com

to discuss their AI use case.