Latest news with #DigitalDevelopmentandInformation
Straits Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Straits Times
French multinational Thales to launch AI centre in Singapore
Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo speaks at the France-Singapore Frontier Technologies Forum 2025 on May 30. ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM SINGAPORE – French aerospace and defence giant Thales will set up a new artificial intelligence (AI) centre in Singapore to develop AI solutions for critical environments and strengthen its research and development capabilities. Solutions that are developed at the cortAIx (pronounced 'cortex') centre will benefit the company's global network, said Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo at the France-Singapore Frontier Technologies Forum, held at the Fullerton Hotel on May 30. The Singapore centre will be Thales' fourth cortAIx site, after France, Canada and Britain, said Thales cortAIx factory vice-president Mickael Brossard. Launched in 2024, cortAIx is an initiative by the French firm to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence for aircraft, armed forces and critical infrastructure, bringing together experts in the sector. Thales, which has operated in Singapore since 1973 and currently conducts manufacturing and maintenance here, among other activities , also signed a deal with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore on May 30 to set up an International Avionics Lab here in 2026, to develop and test new solutions for air traffic management and airport operations. These agreements were among several between French and local organisations that were unveiled at the forum. Mrs Teo announced that France's National Centre for Scientific Research, through its centre at the National University of Singapore's Create facility, will participate in Singapore's National Robotics Programme to strengthen research in embodied AI. Embodied AI is the integration of artificial intelligence with physical systems. The collaboration will be supported with funding of $20 million, Mrs Teo said. (From left) Mistral AI VP Revenue Geoff Soon, cortAIx Factory VP Mickael Brossard, CNRS CEO and President Antoine Petit, HTC Assistant Chief Executive, Chief AI Officer Ang Chee Wee, ST Engineering Group CTO Lee Shiang Long and AI Singapore AI Innovation director Laurence Liew during a panel discussion at the France-Singapore Frontier Technologies Forum 2025 on May 30. ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM Meanwhile, French start-up Mistral AI will partner with ST Engineering on applied AI engineering, she added. This comes on top of a tie-up between Mistral AI, the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) and Microsoft to enhance Home Team operations, announced on May 26. In January, the start-up said it had plans to set up a Singapore office. Mrs Teo also announced that aerospace giant Airbus will work with Singapore's Economic Development Board and the Infocomm Media Development Authority to jointly develop potential applications for a 5G-non-terrestrial network, in which satellites and other high-altitude platforms are used to extend 5G coverage and functionality. 'They aim to reduce time lag and quicken responsiveness of AI systems, so they can be deployed in more scenarios,' she said. French energy company Engie will also partner with transport operator SBS Transit on reducing the carbon footprint of public transport, Mrs Teo said. Singapore and France are both strong proponents of multilateralism, she said. 'Our world is becoming more fractious and unpredictable. Yet, Singapore and France have continued to support an open and inclusive trading system,' she said. 'While tariff-induced uncertainties persist, French businesses operating in Singapore can continue to benefit from the Asean Free Trade Area, which makes it more cost-effective for French businesses in Singapore to export and source goods from this region,' said Mrs Teo. Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo, National Robotics Programme Executive Director (Designate) Tung Meng Fai, CNRS CEO and President Antoine Petit, and French Minister Delegate for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Affairs Clara Chappaz at the bilateral agreement presentation on May 30. ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM Ms Clara Chappaz, France's Minister Delegate for artificial intelligence and digital technologies, said the two countries had a common mission not only to see technology develop, but to see it used for the common good. Speaking at the event, Minister-in-charge of Energy, and Science and Technology Tan See Leng noted that ties between the two countries were 'underpinned by strong economic cooperation that has grown steadily over the years'. Manpower Minister and Minister in charge of Energy and Science and Technology Tan See Leng speaking at the France-Singapore Frontier Technologies Forum 2025 on May 30. ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM France is currently the Republic's second-largest goods trading partner and third-largest investor among EU member states, Dr Tan said, adding that more than 2,600 French firms operate here. 'Since the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA) entered into force in 2019, bilateral goods trade has grown by around 10 per cent to exceed $21 billion in 2024. Bilateral services trade also expanded by around 20 per cent to surpass $8 billion in 2023,' he said. The announcements were made in conjunction with a state visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Singapore. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong had earlier announced the two countries would upgrade their bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which would deepen cooperation in existing sectors as well expand collaboration in new areas such as decarbonisation. Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
Korea Herald
5 days ago
- Business
- Korea Herald
Singapore's MERaLiON, Southeast Asia's empathetic Large Language Model, Breaks New Ground with Multilingual Processing and Emotional Intelligence
SINGAPORE, May 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- At ATxSummit 2025, the flagship event of Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG), Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information (MDDI), unveiled updates to Singapore's Large Language Model - Multimodal Empathetic Reasoning and Learning in One Network (MERaLiON) - and launched the MERaLiON Consortium, a significant boost to Southeast Asia's AI capabilities. She also announced new global initiatives and collaborations which strengthen Singapore's AI ecosystem and accelerate responsible AI adoption, putting Singapore at the forefront of efforts to operationalise AI safety. MERaLiON breaks new ground with enhancements and new Global Partnerships MERaLiON, a large language model developed by A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (A*STAR I 2 R) and supported by IMDA, breaks new ground in regional AI capabilities with enhanced multilingual processing and emotional intelligence. The model now handles Malay, Tamil, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, and Vietnamese on top of English, Mandarin and Singlish, with advanced code-switching abilities and emotion recognition features. These improvements enable more intuitive and culturally aware AI applications in Southeast Asia, which could be applied to customer service, social service, and marketing. To accelerate adoption, IMDA and A*STAR I 2 R have launched the MERaLiON consortium, to bring together local and global industry players and research and development (R&D) institutions like HTX, MOH Office for Healthcare Transformation (MOHT), NCS, National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC), SPH Media and ST Engineering with technology companies like Axiom IT Solutions, BytePlus, CommonTown, DBS, Grab and Microsoft Singapore. The consortium will focus on developing practical AI applications, from multilingual customer support to health and emotional insight detection and agentic decision-making systems. Since its release in December 2024, MERaLiON's first version has garnered over 90,000 downloads globally, attracting users from corporate research labs, media service providers, startups, and academics. Advancing global conversations for a trusted AI ecosystem In the area of AI safety research, Singapore was the site of global cooperation in identifying and prioritising research domains through the "The Singapore Consensus on Global AI Safety Research Priorities" (The Singapore Consensus). This Consensus is a living document that will serve as the foundation for the ATxSG Government-to-Government (G2G) Ministerial Roundtable on Digital Trust which seeks to bridge science to policy, and translate technical research into practical policies, by facilitating meaningful conversations between AI scientists and policymakers. Singapore's enhanced AI Verify Testing Framework addresses both Generative AI (Gen AI) and traditional AI risks. In continued collaboration with the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), we developed a crosswalk to map the enhanced Framework with the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. This reaffirms the alignment between our two countries' AI governance frameworks and reflects our shared commitment to cooperation. Together, these initiatives underscore Singapore's commitment to building foundational infrastructure for AI safety development and testing that is grounded in scientific evidence to co-develop implementable, interoperable frameworks for responsible AI. Strengthening global digital trust partnerships Singapore's AI Safety Institute signed a Joint Statement with France's AI Safety Institute to kickstart collaboration and cooperation on AI safety and cooperation on 28 May 2025. The Joint statement was signed between MDDI, Mrs Josephine Teo, and French Minister Delegate of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologues, Mrs Clara Chappaz at ATx 2025. Singapore and US spearhead the Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) Certification for businesses to facilitate trusted cross border data flows, providing access to 9 economies with about 40 trillion in market size. This was developed by the Global CBPR Forum, of which Singapore serves as deputy chair. Companies can apply for the new Certification from 2 June 2025, which will allow organisations to demonstrate compliance with internationally recognised data protection standards. Singapore's Enigma Health partners with Roche and ST Engineering Enigma Health, a spinoff from SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre, signed two strategic partnerships on 27 May 2025, with Roche and ST Engineering's Enterprise Digital to expand its capabilities. This was announced by Mdm Rahayu Mahzam, Minister of State for Digital Development and Information at the "Scaling and Sustaining Healthcare with Gen AI" symposium held at ATxSG. These two new partnerships will accelerate clinical trials, market access, insights and business intelligence to help with patients' care and access to novel drugs and digital technologies. Enigma Health's flagship product, Enigma, is Singapore's home-grown sovereign healthcare agentic AI platform developed by a team of clinicians and AI scientists to improve workflow optimisation, streamlining data-intensive and time-consuming processes while ensuring robust data security and regulatory compliance. It has been piloted at SingHealth institutions. IMDA and Thailand's National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to combat telecommunications fraud across ASEAN. The MOU was exchanged between Ms Jasmin Lau, Minister of State at the Ministry of Digital Development and Information and Dr Sarana Boonbaichaiyapruck, Chairman of the NBTC at the sidelines of ATxSG 2025.
New Paper
6 days ago
- Business
- New Paper
Singlish-savvy national AI chatbot can check in on seniors, intercept scam calls
Artificial intelligence agents trained to speak in English, local mother tongue languages, and even Singlish, may soon be deployed to call elderly patients or seniors to check in on how they are doing, or at anti-scam centres to intercept suspicious calls. "I've been told (the chatbot) can also handle non-verbal cues such as the speaker's volume, emotion and tone," said Digital Development and Information Minister Josephine Teo, unveiling the chatbot on May 28 at the Asia Tech x Singapore conference held at Capella Singapore. Called Meralion (short for Multimodal Empathetic Reasoning and Learning in One Network), the chatbot can understand at least eight regional languages such as English, Mandarin, Tamil, Malay, Thai and Singlish - Singapore's unique take on English which fuses regional languages. Meralion, which is developed by the A*Star Institute for Infocomm Research, is available for the public to install for free to adapt for their use. Talks are also under way with a social service agency to deploy the chatbot. For instance, Meralion can help social workers ring seniors to remind them to take their medication. The AI program, which works autonomously, can also check in on the seniors' well-being, analysing their tone and dialogue for signs of sadness or anger that might require closer attention from human staff. The chatbot will generate a summary of the call, detailing the senior's needs and well-being. Meralion's development is part of a $70 million initiative funded by the National Research Foundation and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), which aims to build large language models tailored for the region. The fund has also backed AI Singapore's Sea-Lion (South-east Asian Languages in One Network) model, which is trained on at least 11 major languages used in the region. The Meralion chatbot fills a gap for locally attuned language models as most current AI systems are trained largely on Western data, said Dr Lawrence Wee, director of business and ecosystems at IMDA's BizTech Group. As a result, chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini that dominate the fast-growing AI field may often stumble over local dialects, communication styles and nuances, so deploying them here often requires extensive retraining on regional data. Meralion, which is trained on the national speech corpus, understands when multiple languages are spoken in the same sentence, reflecting how people in the region naturally communicate. It can also detect emotional tone to enable more empathetic interactions with the chatbot, said IMDA and A*Star. They added that in future updates, Meralion is being trained to understand Chinese dialects. Mrs Teo, who is Minister-in-charge of Smart Nation and Cybersecurity, said the Meralion chatbot can serve the needs of more than 450 million people in the region who use these languages. In a demonstration on May 26, the media was shown how Meralion can be deployed in eldercare and anti-scam efforts. The social services AI bot asked the caller how he was feeling and understood his Singlish reply, which included a lament on his early start to the day: "I wake up at 6 and make my kopi-o" (black coffee). The bot responded in Singlish: "Aiyoh, so sayang... Hope your kopi-o helped. Have you eaten? Remember to take care of yourself, okay?" For more severe concerns such as body aches, the bot can give basic advice, such as to rest or to ice bruises. Urgent cases can be flagged directly to social workers, depending on how the program is implemented. Axiom IT Solutions, which is using Meralion to develop new AI apps, is in talks with a social service agency, which it did not identify, to deploy the AI chatbot for eldercare. In a separate demonstration, Meralion was used to screen likely scam calls to prevent scammers from reaching victims over the phone. If a call seems suspicious, Meralion answers, identifies itself as an AI assistant, and asks the caller to state his or her purpose. The bot assesses the purpose of the call before deciding whether to let the call through or to block it. Meralion can also block calls made by bots, often used by scammers to target victims en masse. It is yet to be seen how potential clients will implement the technology. Telcos might employ it to screen suspicious calls before they reach users who opt in for the security service, or as an app to filter calls, said Mr Lam Pang Ngean, business development director at Axiom IT Solutions, which is among Meralion's users using the platform to create apps for potential clients. An earlier version of Meralion has been downloaded more than 90,000 times by start-ups, research labs and academics, among other users, since it was rolled out as an open-source tool last December. Speaking to several hundred tech policymakers, researchers and industry guests in attendance at the conference, Mrs Teo said: "Furthermore, (Meralion's latest version) understands sentences containing a mix of languages, which is common in multicultural societies." "It's very unusual for us to complete a whole sentence using just one language," she said, adding that there are more than 1,200 languages and dialects in South-east Asia. Meralion follows in the footsteps of Sea-Lion, another large language model designed to reflect local cultures. The open-source Sea-Lion software has been installed more than 200,000 times, said Mrs Teo, adding that the interest in a regionally attuned model indicated a demand for a new AI program capable of understanding speech, text and other modes of communication. Organised by IMDA, the ATxSG conference, held from May 27 to 29, is expected to host 3,500 attendees from around the world who will attend panels and discussions on AI governance and innovation in the technology sector. Executives from major tech companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are also scheduled to attend panel discussions that address pressing issues in tech. Mrs Teo also announced the Meralion Consortium, which comprises 12 member organisations including DBS Bank, the Ministry of Health's Office for Healthcare Transformation and ST Engineering. It will work with Meralion's developers to refine the AI model so that it can be used by member companies and their sectors. The consortium will focus on multilingual customer support, analysing speech and text for emotional cues to support well-being and care and to improve the AI's decision-making ability by factoring in cultural contexts. Microsoft, one of the consortium's members, is working with A*Star on how Meralion can be woven into its suite of office tools. SPH Media, which publishes The Straits Times, is also exploring ways to use Meralion to support AI apps in user experience and customer service tools, said chief operating officer Loh Yuh Yiing.
The Star
6 days ago
- Business
- The Star
Singlish-savvy Singapore AI chatbot can check in on seniors, intercept scam calls
SINGAPORE: Artificial intelligence agents trained to speak in English, local mother-tongue languages and even Singlish may soon be deployed to call elderly patients or seniors to check in on how them are doing, or in anti-scam centres to intercept suspicious calls. 'I've been told (the chatbot) can also handle non-verbal cues such as the speaker's volume, emotion, tone,' said Digital Development and Information Minister Josephine Teo, unveiling the chatbot on Wednesday (May 28) at the Asia Tech x Singapore conference. Called Meralion (short for Multimodal Empathetic Reasoning and Learning in One Network), the chatbot can understand at least eight regional languages such as English, Mandarin, Tamil, Malay, Thai and Singlish - Singapore's unique take on English which fuses regional languages. Meralion, which is developed by A*Star (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), is available for the public to install for free to adapt for their uses. Its developers are also in talks with a social service agency to deploy the chatbot, and are refining the program for use in scam detection. For instance, Meralion can help social workers ring seniors to remind them to take their medication. The AI program, which works autonomously, can also check in on the seniors' well-being, analysing their tone and dialogue for signs of sadness or anger that might require closer attention from human staff members. The chatbot will generate a summary of the call, detailing the senior's needs and well-being. Meralion's development is part of a S$70 million initiative funded by the National Research Foundation and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), which aims to build large language models tailored for the region. The fund has also backed AI Singapore's Sea-Lion (South-east Asian Languages in One Network) model, which is trained on at least 11 major languages used in the region. The Meralion chatbot fills a gap for locally-attuned language models as most current AI systems are trained largely on Western data, said Dr Lawrence Wee, director of business and ecosystems at IMDA's BizTech Group. As a result, chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Gemini that dominate the fast-growing AI field can often stumble over local dialects, communication styles and nuances, so deploying them here often requires extensive retraining on regional data. Meralion, trained on the national speech corpus, understands when multiple languages are spoken in the same sentence, reflecting how people in the region naturally communicate. Meralion can also detect emotional tone to enable more empathetic interactions with the chatbot, said IMDA and A*Star. They added that Meralion is being trained to understand Chinese dialects in future updates. Teo, who is Minister-in-Charge of Smart Nation and Cybersecurity, said that the Meralion chatbot can serve the needs of more than 450 million people in the region who use these languages. In a demonstration on May 26, the media was shown how Meralion can be deployed in eldercare and anti-scam efforts. The social services AI bot asked the caller how he was feeling and understood his Singlish reply, which included a lament on his early start to the day: 'I wake up at 6 and make my kopi-o' (local black coffee). The bot responded in Singlish: 'Aiyoh, so sayang... Hope your kopi-o helped. Have you eaten? Remember to take care of yourself, okay?' For more severe concerns such as body aches, the bot can give basic advice, such as to rest or ice bruises. Urgent cases can be flagged directly to social workers, depending on how the program is implemented. Dr Wee said Meralion's developers are in talks with a social service agency, which it did not identify, to deploy the AI chatbot for eldercare. In a separate demonstration, Meralion was used to screen likely scam calls to prevent scammers from reaching victims over the phone. If a call seems suspicious, Meralion answers, identifies itself as an AI assistant and asks the caller to state their purpose. The bot assesses the purpose of the call before deciding whether to let the call through or to block it. Meralion can also block calls made by bots, often used by scammers to target victims en masse. It is yet to be seen how potential clients will implement the technology. Telcos might employ it to screen suspicious calls before they reach users who opt in for the security service, or as an app to filter calls, said Lam Pang Ngean, business development director at Axion IT Solutions, which is working with A*Star bring Meralion to potential clients. An earlier version of Meralion has been downloaded more than 90,000 times by start-ups, research labs and academics, among other users, since it was rolled out as an open-source tool in December 2024. 'Furthermore, (Meralion's latest version) understands sentences containing a mix of languages, which is common in multi-cultural societies,' said Teo, speaking to several hundred tech policymakers, researchers and industry guests in attendance at Capella in Sentosa. 'It's very unusual for us to complete a whole sentence using just one language,' she said, adding that there were more than 1,200 languages and dialects in South-East Asia. Meralion follows the footsteps of Sea-Lion, another large language model designed to reflect local cultures. The open-source Sea-Lion software has been installed more than 200,000 times, said Teo, adding that the interest in a regionally attuned model indicated a demand for a new AI program capable of understanding speech, text and other modes of communication. Organised by IMDA, the ATxSG conference is expected to host 3,500 attendees from around the world who will attend panels and discussions on AI governance and innovation in the technology sector between May 27 and 29. Executives from major tech companies like OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are also scheduled to attend panel discussions that address pressing issues in tech. Teo announced the Meralion Consortium, which launches with 12 member organisations including DBS Bank, the Ministry of Health and ST Engineering, to with Meralion's developers to refine the AI model so that they can be used by member companies and their sectors. The consortium will focus on multilingual customer support, analysing speech and text for emotional cues to support wellbeing and care and to improve AI's decision-making ability by factoring cultural contexts. The members include Microsoft, which is working with A*Star on how Meralion can be woven into its suite of office tools. SPH Media, which runs The Straits Times, is also exploring ways to use Meralion to support AI apps in user experience and customer service tools, said chief operating officer Loh Yuh Yiing. - The Straits Times/ANN
Straits Times
19-05-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
AI and design will see wider adoption only if tools and systems are designed well: Tan Kiat How
Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Tan Kiat How noted that enterprise adoption of AI has grown steadily from 34 per cent in 2022 to 46 per cent last year. PHOTO: SUTD AI and design will see wider adoption only if tools and systems are designed well: Tan Kiat How SINGAPORE - More companies in Singapore view artificial intelligence (AI) as a 'practical tool' for growth and innovation today, with many already moving past the experimentation stage and actively deploying AI in their daily operations. Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Tan Kiat How said this at the inaugural Design AI and Tech Awards ceremony on May 19, an event that recognised enterprises that harness design, AI and technology to tackle real business challenges. Mr Tan noted that, according to latest available figures, enterprise adoption of AI has grown steadily from 34 per cent in 2022 to 46 per cent last year. In 2024, close to 3,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) here adopted AI-enabled solutions from local retailers – making use of the technology to help them to forecast demand, optimise venues and reduce wastage. Mr Tan added that with this greater adoption of AI, SMEs should take advantage of various government initiatives and make use of the platforms and tools on offer. He cited examples such as the Chief Technology Officer-as-a-Service, which offers over 300 pre-approved digital solutions, nearly a third of which were AI-enabled last year alone. It supported more than 330,000 users and helped some 3,000 SMEs adopt AI to enhance operations, improve customer efficiency and make informed decisions. Another tool is the SME Go Digital programme, which has benefited close to 100,000 SMEs since 2017 by helping them digitalise at their own pace to suit their needs. 'Innovators and start-ups in Singapore who find solutions to common issues should make use of these platforms to reach out to SMEs and firms,' he said. These platforms are not just for end-users but also for innovators to scale up and implement their solutions in Singapore and overseas. Beyond SMEs, Tan also highlighted the importance of helping workers outside of traditional tech sectors, by providing clear and practical guidance on how roles are evolving and to keep pace with them. In his speech at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Tan also spoke of the focus on enrolling more students in information and digital technology (IDT) courses. Last year, around 8,000 students were enrolled in such courses across universities, polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education. IDT places at universities have increased from 3,000 in 2020 to 4,000 this year, accounting for more than one in four degree places, he said. Universities are also making AI more accessible, practical and relevant across fields beyond tech, such as architecture, sustainable design and engineering product development. 'It's not about our technology, it's our people and talent. AI and design will only be widely adopted if the tools are designed well with the user interface and experience fitting into existing workflows. Designers not only need skills but (they) also need to understand users and their needs,' said Mr Tan. The Design AI and Tech Awards, jointly organised by The Business Times and the SUTD, saw three finalists named as this year's winners – LionsBot, MetaOptics Technologies and Sengkang General Hospital. The awards were open to all companies, international and locally, including SMEs, start-ups and large corporations. Applicants were assessed across six criteria: design thinking process and strategies; originality; utilisation of AI and advanced technologies; ethical consideration and sustainability; aesthetic and functional qualities; and whether the design has made quantitative and qualitative impact. THE BUSINESS TIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
