Singapore will spend $107m to be a force for AI in the next 5 years. It’s just in time.

Minister for communications and information Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim announces AI.SG at Innovfest Unbound. Photo credit: Innovfest Unbound.

Artificial intelligence is the trending tech topic of the year and Singapore’s government doesn’t want to miss out. That’s the motivation behind AI.SG, a new initiative announced during the Innovfest Unbound conference by minister for communications and information, Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim. It aims to bring together government agencies, universities and institutes, investors, industry people, and startups to advance AI research, development, and practical use in Singapore.

AI.SG brings together six of the country’s most prestigious government-related players: the National Research Foundation (NRF), the recently founded Smart Nation and Digital Government Office, the Economic Development Board, the Infocomm and Media Development Authority, SGInnovate, and healthcare IT firm Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS).

NRF said it will invest up to US$107 million over the next five years in the project.

See: An absolute beginner’s guide to machine learning, deep learning, and AI

Making the case for AI

The problem the initiative is addressing goes like this:

AI is a complicated and broad area, which means it is expensive both in terms of experts working on it and infrastructure needed. So Singaporean companies can’t afford to start their own AI programs individually or form the teams of experts needed to do that. At the same time, aspects of the technology, from machine learning to image recognition, are already so prevalent their value can’t be ignored.

While plenty of startups work on various AI applications in the city-state, they more or less have to either work on their own or self-organize if they want to share resources and knowledge. Universities need help getting their research to the market and creating products from it. And government agencies need to access and understand all this knowledge and showcase it to the rest of the world.

Healthcare is one of the key areas where Singapore wants to apply the power of artificial intelligence. Photo credit: Intel Free Press

AI.SG wants to tackle these challenges by focusing on three things:

Address major challenges affecting society and industry

As examples of this, the government mentions things like better traffic management but zeroes in on healthcare-related applications. This sector’s importance for Singapore is highlighted by the participation of IHiS, which focuses on improving healthcare through data science, computer science, machine learning, analytics, and more.

“AI could play a big role in supporting prevention, diagnosis, treatment plans, medication management, precision medicine, and drug creation,” says IHiS CEO and Ministry of Health chief information officer, Bruce Liang.

Good news for startups