SG60: Running Singapore on innovation – Brains, bytes and billion-dollar growth engines
A key theme that can be found across different industries is the push to innovate and conduct research and development
EDB chairman Png Cheong Boon said EDB will continue to attract investments that are knowledge and innovation-intensive, aligned with the Republic's transition to a low-carbon economy, and that have high growth potential.
As at mid-2025, Singapore secured more than 40 AI centres of excellence, attracting both digital-native and industrial firms to research and develop various forms of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions here, including those related to proprietary generative AI (GenAI). GenAI is a type of AI that can create new content – such as text, images, audio and video – based on the data it has been trained on.
Last year, Singapore also launched three new accelerators that nurtured more than 50 promising locally based ventures.
This is attributable to Digital Industry Singapore, a joint office formed in 2019 by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) and Infocomm Media Development Authority.
The government has been working with industry players to set up sectoral-based centres of excellence to look at use cases that can be applied widely and build domain-specific capabilities in key economic sectors.
For instance, the Sectoral AI Centre of Excellence for Manufacturing, which was launched in September 2024, supports industry partners and companies in the adoption of GenAI and machine learning in areas such as quality assurance and predictive maintenance. This is to enhance the manufacturing value chain.
AI is just one aspect of Singapore's economic evolution.
EDB chairman Png Cheong Boon said EDB will continue to attract investments that are knowledge and innovation-intensive, aligned with the Republic's transition to a low-carbon economy, and that have high growth potential.
Top stories
Swipe. Select. Stay informed.
Singapore Luxury items seized in $3b money laundering case handed over to Deloitte for liquidation
Singapore MyRepublic customers air concerns over broadband speed after sale to StarHub
Singapore Power switchboard failure led to disruption in NEL, Sengkang-Punggol LRT services: SBS Transit
Singapore NEL and Sengkang-Punggol LRT resume service after hours-long power fault
Business Ninja Van cuts 12% of Singapore workforce after 2 rounds of layoffs in 2024
Singapore Hyflux investigator 'took advantage' of Olivia Lum's inability to recall events: Davinder Singh
Singapore Man who stabbed son-in-law to death in Boon Tat Street in 2017 dies of heart attack, says daughter
Singapore Man who stalked woman blasted by judge on appeal for asking scandalous questions in court
'We are targeting high-value investments that create good jobs requiring deep capabilities and that entail regional or global responsibilities; and where companies have a strong focus on the training and development of employees,' he noted.
These would include manufacturing and services projects in sectors such as aerospace, semiconductors, biopharmaceuticals, medical technology and specialty chemicals, besides new growth areas such as precision medicine, AI and sustainable products and services.
With sustainability being a priority, global companies see it as a plus that Singapore partners them in their low-carbon transition, added Png. These range from adopting renewable energy to increasing energy efficiencies in existing processes.
Today, there are more than 150 carbon services and trading firms – double the number from 2021.
Besides renewable energy services and the bio-economy, an area that Singapore is actively looking at is low-carbon technologies.
The Republic is home to the world's largest sustainable aviation fuel production facility by capacity, operated by Neste, and is developing a cross-border carbon capture and storage hub led by ExxonMobil and Shell to support domestic decarbonisation.
Singapore is home to the world's largest sustainable aviation fuel production facility by capacity, operated by Neste.
PHOTO: NESTE
Brains behind the economy's transformation
A walk through history will find that EDB has been a catalyst for Singapore's competitiveness for decades.
It cultivated labour-intensive industries such as manufacturing in the 1960s to address high unemployment and jump-start the economy, before shifting in the 1970s to skills-intensive industries such as precision engineering and electronics.
In the 1980s, EDB turned towards capital-intensive and higher-technology industries including computers, machinery and pharmaceuticals. For example, the Republic welcomed its first semiconductor wafer fabrication plant and the first petrochemical complex in Asia at this time.
By the 1990s, Singapore was on its way to becoming a knowledge-based economy as EDB laid the groundwork for the transition through innovation, research and development (R&D), and technopreneurship.
Along with manufacturing, EDB invested in services as a second growth engine, and developed the biomedical sciences, aerospace and modern services sectors, so that workers had the relevant skills and experience.
The transformation signalled the reimagining of the traditional petrochemicals sector and a move to develop infrastructure such as Jurong Island and industrial estates, to support heavy shipping and manufacturing industries.
A key theme that can be found across different industries is the push to innovate and conduct R&D. In the past five years, Singapore has invested about S$28 billion or 1 per cent of its gross domestic product annually to strengthen its research ecosystem and encourage more companies to deepen their innovation footprint here.
Png explained that EDB's role goes far beyond just helping businesses set up here. It guides companies through their entire growth journey in the region – from facilitating collaborations with local companies and suppliers in Singapore to connecting them with the right partners to explore regional expansion.
'As the firms achieve critical mass, EDB encourages them to deepen their presence by establishing regional headquarters and centres of excellence, so that high-value activities are embedded in Singapore, in turn creating higher-value jobs,' he added.
Indeed, the Ministry of Manpower's (MOM) labour market second-quarter report released in September 2024 showed that about 20 per cent of firms here are foreign-owned, yet they employ 60 per cent of Singapore residents in high-earning jobs.
MOM said foreign-owned firms employ an outsized share of those who earn a gross monthly income of above S$12,500 and fall into the top 10 per cent of income distribution.
Strengthening Singapore's core
The foresight in the early years meant that Singapore's manufacturing and services sectors had time to become sophisticated, supported by excellent infrastructure, a skilled workforce and a conducive business climate. It is how and why the city-state now accounts for 10 per cent of global chips output and roughly 20 per cent of global semiconductor equipment output.
In the healthcare space, eight out of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies conduct manufacturing or R&D here.
EDB is now responsible for more than 35 per cent of Singapore's annual GDP in the manufacturing and tradeable services sectors. Manufacturing alone makes up nearly one-fifth of the country's GDP.
Under Singapore's Manufacturing 2030 plan, the sector's value-add is to be raised by 50 per cent from 2020 to 2030. The goal is to ensure a diverse range of manufacturing activities and attract companies with specialised capabilities that will allow the country to remain an essential part of global value chains.
Singapore has five best-in-class advanced manufacturing facilities that are part of the World Economic Forum's Global Lighthouse Network, including those by Coca-Cola and Infineon Technologies.
In aerospace, major players such as Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney have deepened their operations here. Singapore is now a leading aerospace hub in the Asia-Pacific region with more than 130 aerospace companies that contribute to 10 per cent of global maintenance, repair and overhaul output.
Efforts to turn the Republic into a hub for the region have also paid off.
Earlier this year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and German specialty chemicals firm Munzing opened their Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore with plans to grow the software engineering team and invest in local R&D, respectively.
In May, the Republic took the fourth spot out of 118 countries in the 2025 Global Startup Ecosystem Index by research platform StartupBlink, behind Israel, Britain and the US.
'We want to attract activities that ensure we remain a critical part of global value chains which play to Singapore's strengths, that would be hard for others to replicate and would continue to be relevant to the global economy in future.
'Riding on fast-growing sectors and those with high growth potential enables Singapore to plug into global economic growth and the growth potential of the immediate region,' said Png, who added that EDB is also encouraging experienced founders to scale their next ventures from Singapore, through the Global Founder Programme.
To stay ahead, EDB is cognisant that the local workforce must also be able to keep up with the needs of businesses.
Besides the national programme that funds upskilling, EDB has also rolled out various targeted training programmes to help workers.
In 2024, EDB partnered Oracle to upskill up to 10,000 local workers and tertiary students in GenAI by 2027. There is also AWS' flagship AI programme, AWS AI Spring, where it will collaborate with universities, polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education on AI learning. The aim is to train 5,000 individuals over three years, from 2024 to 2026.
EDB, Oracle, AWS and Databricks have also rolled out digital training schemes in areas such as cybersecurity, cloud computing and data management.
EDB, Oracle, AWS and Databricks (above) have rolled out digital training schemes in areas such as cybersecurity, cloud computing and data management.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In addition, EDB invests in leadership development – through programmes such as the Global Business Leaders Programme and Singapore Leaders Network – to better support Singaporeans to take on leadership roles in key companies.
Building a resilient and connected ecosystem
In today's volatile and fragmented world, it is important to ensure that the Republic's supply chain ecosystem and regional connectivity deliver unmatched value to global businesses.
Therefore, initiatives such as the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone can not only help strengthen ties with neighbouring economies, but also complement the city-state's extensive global network of 28 free trade agreements.
These efforts will go a long way in ensuring the Republic's supply chain resilience and seamless regional integration, so that Singapore is an indispensable hub for multinational corporations (MNCs) navigating geopolitical uncertainties.
Beyond that, EDB is also committed to reinforcing Singapore's supportive business ecosystem.
For instance, it works with JTC to provide the right infrastructure to companies. To spur greater collaboration between MNCs and local enterprises, EDB and EnterpriseSG have the Partnerships for Capability Transformation scheme that provides funding support for capability training, internationalisation, corporate venturing, supplier development and co-innovation.
'These are win-win partnerships that strengthen supply chain resilience for global businesses while helping our local companies build new capabilities,' said Png. He added that, over time, this would make businesses here more competitive and improve Singapore's economy.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
a day ago
- Straits Times
Companies are pouring billions into AI. It has yet to pay off.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Corporate spending on artificial intelligence is surging as executives bank on major efficiency gains. So far, they report little effect to the bottom line. Nearly four decades ago, when the personal computer boom was in full swing, a phenomenon known as the 'productivity paradox' emerged. It was a reference to how, despite companies' huge investments in new technology, there was scant evidence of a corresponding gain in workers' efficiency. Today, the same paradox is appearing, but with generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI). According to recent research by McKinsey & Co, nearly eight in 10 companies have reported using Gen AI, but just as many have reported 'no significant bottom-line impact'. AI technology has been racing ahead with chatbots such as ChatGPT, fuelled by a high-stakes arms race among tech giants and super-rich startups, and prompting an expectation that everything from back-office accounting to customer service will be revolutionised. But the payoff for businesses outside the tech sector is lagging behind, plagued by issues including an irritating tendency by chatbots to make stuff up. That means that businesses will have to continue to invest billions to avoid falling behind – but it could be years before the technology delivers an economy-wide payoff, as companies gradually figure out what works best. Call it the 'gen AI paradox,' as McKinsey did in its research report. Investments in Gen AI by businesses are expected to increase 94 per cent in 2025 to US$61.9 billion (S$79.5 billion), according to IDC, a technology research firm. But the percentage of companies abandoning most of their AI pilot projects soared to 42 per cent by the end of 2024, up from 17 per cent the previous year, according to a survey of more than 1,000 technology and business managers by S&P Global, a data and analytics firm. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore I want to divorce my husband and be a single mother: More victims speaking up on emotional abuse World Trump drops Ukraine ceasefire demand after Putin summit Singapore Buying hope: Inside S'pore's love affair with the lottery Singapore She won big in Genting, but getting $240k winnings back to Singapore was dicey Opinion Confessions of a born-again Singaporean Business Manage your household finances like a business for clarity, say entrepreneurs Business Silence does not work when dealing with job loss blues Singapore Singapore congratulates Indonesia on 80th Independence Day Projects failed not only because of technical hurdles, but often also because of 'human factors' like employee and customer resistance or lack of skills, said S&P Global senior analyst Alexander Johnston. Gartner, a research and advisory firm that charts technological 'hype cycles', predicts that AI is sliding towards a stage it calls 'the trough of disillusionment'. The low point is expected next year, before the technology eventually becomes a proven productivity tool, said Gartner chief forecaster John-David Lovelock. That was the pattern with past technologies such as personal computers and the internet – early exuberance, the hard slog of mastering a technology, followed by a transformation of industries and work. The winners so far have been the suppliers of AI technology and advice. They include Microsoft, Amazon and Google, which offer AI software, while Nvidia is the runaway leader in AI chips. Executives at those companies have bragged how AI is reshaping their own workforces, eliminating the need for some entry-level coding work and making other workers more efficient. AI will eventually replace entire swaths of human employees, many predict, a perspective that is being widely embraced and echoed in the corporate mainstream. At the Aspen Ideas Festival in June, Mr Jim Farley, chief executive of Ford Motor, said: 'Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the US.' Whether that type of revolutionary change occurs, and how soon, depends on the real-world testing ground of many businesses. 'The raw technological horsepower is terrific, but it's not going to determine how quickly AI transforms the economy,' said Mr Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist and co-director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Initiative on the Digital Economy. Still, some businesses are finding ways to incorporate AI – although in most cases the technology is still a long way from replacing workers. One company where AI's promise and flaws are playing out is USAA, which provides insurance and banking services to members of the military and their families. After several pilot projects, some of which it closed down, the company introduced an AI assistant to help its 16,000 customer service workers provide correct answers to specific questions. USAA is tracking its AI investments, but does not yet have a calculation of the financial payoff, if any, for the call centre software. But the response from its workers, the company said, has been overwhelmingly positive. While it has software apps for answering customer questions online, its call centres field an average of 200,000 calls a day. 'Those are moments that matter,' said Mr Ramnik Bajaj, the company's chief data analytics and AI officer. 'They want a human voice at the other end of the phone.' That's similar to an AI app developed more than a year ago for fieldworkers at Johnson Controls, a large supplier of building equipment, software and services. The company fed its operating and service manuals for its machines into an AI program that has been trained to generate a problem summary, suggest repairs and deliver it all to the technician's tablet computer. In testing, the app has trimmed 10 to 15 minutes off a repair call of an hour or more – a useful efficiency gain, but hardly a workplace transformation on its own. Fewer than 2,000 of the company's 25,000 field service workers have access to the AI helper, although the company is planning an expansion. 'It's still pretty early days, but the idea is that over time, everyone will use it,' said Mr Vijay Sankaran, the chief digital and information officer at Johnson Controls. The long-term vision is that companies will use AI to improve multiple systems, including sales, procurement, manufacturing, customer service and finance, he said. 'That's the game changer,' said Mr Sankaran, who predicts that shift will take at least five years. Two years ago, JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest bank, blocked access to ChatGPT from its computers because of potential security risks. Only a few hundred data scientists and engineers were allowed to experiment with AI. Today, about 200,000 of the bank's employees have access to a general-purpose AI assistant – essentially a business chatbot – from their work computers for tasks such as retrieving data, answering business questions and writing reports. The assistant, tailored for JPMorgan's use, taps into ChatGPT and other AI tools, while ensuring data security for confidential bank and customer information. Roughly half of the workers use it regularly and report spending up to four hours less a week on basic office tasks, the company said. The bank's wealth advisers are also employing a more specialised AI assistant, which uses bank, market and customer data to provide wealthy clients with investment research and advice. The bank says it retrieves information and helps advisers make investment recommendations nearly twice as fast as they could before, increasing sales. Ms Lori Beer, the global chief information officer at JPMorgan, oversees a worldwide technology staff of 60,000. Has she shut down AI projects? Probably hundreds in total, she said. But many of the shelved prototypes, she said, developed concepts and code that were folded into other, continuing projects. 'We're absolutely shutting things down,' Ms Beer said. 'We're not afraid to shut things down. We don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's a smart thing.' Mr McAfee, the MIT research scientist, agreed. 'It's not surprising that early AI efforts are falling short,' said Mr McAfee, who is a founder of Workhelix, an AI consulting firm. 'Innovation is a process of failing fairly regularly.' NYTIMES
Straits Times
5 days ago
- Straits Times
Russia says its demands are unchanged: full Ukrainian withdrawal from regions that Moscow claims
MOSCOW - Russia said on Wednesday that its stance on ending the war in Ukraine has not changed since President Vladimir Putin set out his conditions last year: the full withdrawal of Kyiv's forces from key Ukrainian regions and the abandonment of its NATO ambitions. Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump are due to meet on Friday in Alaska, the first U.S.-Russian summit since 2021, to discuss efforts to end the war. Trump has said both sides will have to swap some of the land they currently hold to make this happen. Russia currently controls 19% of Ukraine including all of Crimea, all of Luhansk, more than 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions. After reports by some media that Washington understood Putin was ready to compromise on his territorial demands, the Russian Foreign Ministry's deputy spokesperson, Alexei Fadeev, was asked by reporters if Russia's position had changed or not. "Russia's position remains unchanged, and it was voiced in this very hall just over a year ago, on June 14, 2024," Fadeev said, referring to a speech Putin delivered then at the foreign ministry. At that time, in his fullest public remarks so far about the shape of a possible settlement, the Kremlin chief set out demands including the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that they still control. Putin also said that Kyiv would have to officially notify Moscow that it was abandoning its plans to join the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, and that it intended to remain neutral and non-aligned. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore NEL, SPLRT disruption: Electricity surge shut down backup power switchboard, says LTA Singapore At least 1 dead after fire in Jalan Bukit Merah flat, about 60 evacuated Singapore HSA seeks Kpod investigators to arrest abusers, conduct anti-trafficking ops Opinion The 30s are heavy: Understanding suicide among Singapore's young adults Singapore Lawyer who sent misleading letters to 22 doctors fails in bid to quash $18,000 penalty Singapore Jail, caning for recalcitrant drug offender who assaulted 2 cops with stun device Singapore 4 taken to hospital after accident near Sports Hub, including 2 rescued with hydraulic tools Singapore SG60: Many hands behind Singapore's success story In addition, Putin said that the rights and freedoms of Russian-speakers in Ukraine would have to be ensured, and the "realities" that Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson were now part of Russia. Putin has said his conditions would also have to be reflected in international agreements. At the time of his 2024 speech, Ukraine rejected his demands as tantamount to an absurd ultimatum. Ukraine has repeatedly said it will never recognise Russian occupation of its land, and most countries recognise Ukraine's territory within its 1991 borders. Based on the current frontlines, Putin's demand would entail Ukraine ceding an additional 21,000 sq km (8,100 sq miles) to Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russia must agree to a ceasefire before territorial issues are discussed. He would reject any Russian proposal that Ukraine pull its troops from the eastern Donbas region and cede its defensive lines. REUTERS
Straits Times
5 days ago
- Straits Times
In Your Opinion Podcast: How Gen AI like ChatGPT enhances critical thinking, instead of making people lazy
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Shahrman Nayan, creative director of OneDash22 in the ST podcast studio. Synopsis: Every month, The Straits Times takes a hard look at Singapore's social issues of the day with guests. Preliminary findings from a recent MIT study in June in the US, concluded that people using just generative AI (Gen AI) tools such as ChatGPT, became lazier with each subsequent essay they wrote. The study, conducted in Boston, categorised three groups of test subjects aged 18 to 39 according to the tools that they used: ChatGPT, Google or no tools. The brain activity of these writers were scanned across 32 regions of their brain. The result found that ChatGPT users had the lowest brain activity, and 'consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioural levels,' according to the study. But the way ChatGPT is used was critical, as the study found that test subjects who used ChatGPT only after writing the essays on their own, had significant increases in brain connectivity. Just how can ChatGPT be used to enhance productivity without making us lazy? In this episode, ST assistant podcast editor Lynda Hong unpacks the issues and looks at how her human guests maintain the balance between optimising the use of ChatGPT and becoming over-reliant on it. Her guests are Shahrman Nayan, creative director of OneDash22, a local video production company and an avid user of Gen AI for his work; and Cheryl Chia, founder of BrainFit, an education centre for children and young adults, building their cognitive, thinking, and study skills through programmes grounded in scientific approaches. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore NEL, SPLRT disruption: Electricity surge shut down backup power switchboard, says LTA Singapore At least 1 dead after fire in Jalan Bukit Merah flat, about 60 evacuated Singapore HSA seeks Kpod investigators to arrest abusers, conduct anti-trafficking ops Opinion The 30s are heavy: Understanding suicide among Singapore's young adults Singapore Lawyer who sent misleading letters to 22 doctors fails in bid to quash $18,000 penalty Singapore Jail, caning for recalcitrant drug offender who assaulted 2 cops with stun device Singapore 4 taken to hospital after accident near Sports Hub, including 2 rescued with hydraulic tools Singapore SG60: Many hands behind Singapore's success story We even invite ChatGPT to be a 'guest' in this podcast discussion. Highlights (click/tap above): 6:00 How can youths use ChatGPT without becoming lazy 15:21 Cognitive functions like memory and concentration have been going down: Cheryl 29:04 How young people can use Gen AI to improve critical thinking 33:42 How school curriculum can change to enhance critical thinking skills using ChatGPT 37:03 How Shahrman uses Gen AI like ChatGPT to get his colleagues to produce creative work Host: Lynda Hong ( lyndahong@ ) Produced and edited by: Hadyu Rahim, Rebekah Chia and Natasha Liew Executive producers: Ernest Luis & Lynda Hong Follow In Your Opinion Podcast here and get notified for new episode drops: Channel: Apple Podcasts: Spotify: Feedback to: podcast@ SPH Awedio app: --- Follow more ST podcast channels: All-in-one ST Podcasts channel: Get more updates: The Usual Place Podcast YouTube: --- Get The Straits Times app, which has a dedicated podcast player section: The App Store: Google Play: ---
