According to deputy prime minister Lawrence Wong, Singapore will invest over $1 billion ($743 million) over the next five years to support the development of artificial intelligence (AI) in the city-state.
He claims that Singapore is already acknowledged as a major participant in the development of AI.
“We aim to go further – to build new peaks of excellence, and crowd in private sector resources along the way. We have set out the plans to do so in the National AI Strategy 2.0,” he said.
“To support this strategy and further catalyse AI activities, I will invest more than $1 billion over the next five years into AI compute, talent, and industry development,” Wong, who is also the Minister for Finance, said as he delivered Singapore’s FY2024 Budget Statement.
According to him, a portion of the funds will be utilized to guarantee Singapore’s acquisition of cutting-edge chips, which are essential for the advancement and application of artificial intelligence.
“We will also work with leading companies in Singapore and around the world to set up their AI Centers of Excellence here. We want these Centres to spur industry collaboration and innovation, and drive greater value creation across the entire economy,” he added.
“In tandem, I will allocate additional resources to catalyse investments in upgrading our Nationwide Broadband Network,” Wong said.
The government hopes to provide mass market access to 10 Gigabit-per-second broadband speeds by the second half of this decade with additional investments.
“This is 10 times faster than the broadband speed in most homes today. 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,” he added.
