SINGAPORE – Singapore has launched a slew of schemes to give its workforce an edge in the future of artificial intelligence (AI), including allocating up to $500 million to secure advanced computer chips to provide the infrastructure needed to power AI innovation in the private and public sectors.

At least $27 million will go into building expertise in AI, by offering 100 AI scholarships for Singaporean students and attracting global experts to collaborate with Singapore.

During the debate on her ministry’s budget on March 1, Communications and Information Minister Josephine Teo said these plans will go a long way towards building three AI communities here, comprising users, creators and practitioners, such as data scientists and machine learning engineers.

“Every city with some AI ambition wants these creators, practitioners and users – as many as they can get. The competition is extremely intense,” said Mrs Teo.

The ministry provided a breakdown of the $1 billion committed to AI over the next five years, first announced by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong during Budget 2024 on Feb 16.

Investment in talent

The investments in academia aim to grow the AI talent pool here, adding to previously announced plans to triple the AI workforce to at least 15,000 over the next five years as detailed in the National AI Strategy 2.0. The strategy was refreshed in December 2023, when DPM Wong detailed Singapore’s plans to become a leader in AI and the need for all industries to become familiar with AI.

MPs, including Ms Tin Pei Ling (MacPherson) and Mr Sharael Taha (Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC), had asked how Singapore aims to deepen its expertise in AI and attract world-class talent amid intense competition.

Part of the budget will be allocated to award a pilot batch of five AI visiting professors over the next five years to drive research here and provide training opportunities for local students.

Top AI researchers are in high demand internationally and will be critical to help Singapore deepen its expertise and draw in other researchers and companies to work with them, said the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) in a statement. It did not state a budget for the initiative.

The experts will be required to spend at least a fifth of their time on the collaboration and identify a Singapore collaborator to anchor their activities here, it added.

The Government will invest $7 million into an accelerated master’s programme for AI to build a pipeline of Singaporean research talent and students who are keen on AI research roles or to pursue doctorate programmes.

The AI Accelerated Masters Programme, which will halve the period of studies for a Masters by Research degree to one year, is expected to support 50 Singaporeans over the next three years and will open for applications in March.

Over the next three years, at least $20 million in scholarships will be offered to students studying for their undergraduate, master’s or PhD degrees under the SG Digital Scholarship.

The scholarships will target Singaporeans with plans to pursue a career in AI and allow these students to work in the industry after they graduate.

The TechSkills Accelerator initiative, which helps to train fresh or mid-career workers keen to work in tech, will also be expanded by working with companies to receive trainees for hands-on experiences.

More than 17,000 locals have been trained and placed in the tech sector since 2016, and 231,000 individuals received training under the programme, said MCI.

Mrs Teo said that equipping the workforce with AI skills “may be the best way to forestall AI-induced job displacements, which many members (have) expressed concerns about.”

She added: “Many thoughtful observers have, however, pointed out that it is not so much AI displacing workers, but AI-proficient workers displacing AI-deficient workers.”

Singapore bets on chips

The $500 million investment into infrastructure will be channelled to acquire and lease the use of graphics processing units (GPUs) and other computer chips from global vendors, said an MCI spokesman in a media briefing on Feb 22 ahead of the Budget debate.

Singapore’s ability to support the anticipated wave of AI adoption was among the concerns raised by MPs, including Ms Tin, who said Singapore needs to double down on computational power and speed up network connectivity to meet such demands.

More computer chips, like GPUs that support graphics and image processing, will be needed to meet the increasing scale of AI models, MCI said in a fact sheet on its spending plans in 2024.

The computer chips will support new AI apps in sectors like transport, logistics, healthcare and financial services, and are aimed at spurring investments from the industry.

“Done well, this will generate new value beyond productivity moves and experiments and will inform companies’ strategies moving forward,” said MCI. “We recognise that the AI space is fast evolving, and we expect constant advancements in both chip design and compute delivery.”

MCI added that it plans to lease the chips from external providers that offer AI computational infrastructure as a service, or to acquire and site them within government-owned facilities or those belonging to its research partners.

It will provide access to the chips for its partners, with more details to come, said MCI.

SME support

Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Tan Kiat How said the Government will help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) get a leg-up in adopting AI through subsidies, the availability of consultants to provide guidance and other services under the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s SMEs Go Digital programme.

He said this in reply to questions from MPs, including Ms Tin, Ms Jessica Tan (East Coast GRC) and Mr Sharael, who asked how the authorities would back SMEs to digitalise and benefit from AI.

The authorities will also specify how AI can be applied to each sector as they progressively refresh their series of Industry Digital Plans – digitalisation blueprints for businesses to use as a guide.

The plans have been published for 22 sectors, including food services, retail and logistics.

SMEs can also tap a grant for a list of digital tools, 20 per cent of which are AI-enabled, said Mr Tan, citing how AI can help with data entry and report generation.

More than 3,000 SMEs adopted AI-related tools from the list in 2023.

Digitally advanced enterprises keen to develop their own AI solutions can tap a new initiative dubbed Generative AI X Digital Leaders, which will bring together professionals from other participating tech companies to help build AI tools.