Singapore has an AI strategy, but does it have a deployment plan?
We need to change how we measure success. Pilot projects show effort but they don’t reflect whether AI is creating economic value.
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Singapore’s AI plan should turn grants into measurable adoption and national missions into production systems, say the writers.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Tan Chong Huat and Tan Poh Hwee
Singapore has no shortage of artificial intelligence strategies, funding schemes or research programmes. The harder question is whether these efforts are changing how companies, public agencies and industries actually work.
A visit to Beijing in July for the 2026 Global Digital Economy Conference put this issue into sharper relief. We had expected a familiar spectacle: bigger models, faster chips and more impressive demonstrations. But at the China National Convention Centre, what caught our attention was not simply what AI could generate. It was where AI was being placed – inside factories, security systems, transport networks, healthcare and city management.
