Why Singapore’s AI regulator refuses to regulate

This article summarizes an episode of Analyse Podcast’s video series featuring Kiren Kumar, deputy CEO at Singapore’s IMDA.

Kiren Kumar, deputy CEO at Singapore’s IMDA/ Photo credit: Analyse Podcast

Kiren Kumar, deputy CEO at Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), rejects both extremes. He argues that regulating too early is a mistake that stifles digital growth and hinders innovation before it fully develops.

Creating a business advantage requires flexible market rules

Singapore wants to use its global reputation for stability to attract tech firms. However, instead of passing rigid laws, IMDA builds voluntary testing sandboxes to guide corporate behavior long before rule-breaking becomes a crisis.

Kumar notes that Singapore’s brand relies entirely on trust. Rather than demanding rigid compliance upfront, it positions itself as a secure testing ground for emerging industries.

This reputation, built across decades in aerospace and semiconductors, is now being deliberately extended to AI.

“Some countries regulate technology, others don’t,” Kumar says. To find a middle ground, IMDA works directly with companies to build governance frameworks. “We don’t believe regulating it right now is the answer,” he emphasizes.

Policy must translate into daily engineering
To make these frameworks useful, policy must translate into actual code. Kumar says that IMDA launched testing tools like Moonshot.

Through these tools, developers can evaluate their models against governance frameworks before deployment. They then publish the results to educate the global ecosystem.

Independent software breaks traditional business rules

This collaborative approach faces an immediate stress test with the rise of agentic AI.

Because autonomous software executes multi-step plans without human approval, it breaks traditional risk management and forces leaders to rethink corporate liability.

Kumar explains that because agentic AI can reason and take action with no human in the loop, the technology introduces new risks regarding safety and reliability that static laws cannot effectively address.

“With [agentic] systems, you’re going to have multiple agents working together, and I think then we need to rethink how we frame the model governance framework,” Kumar says, stressing that oversight must be built around multi-agent use cases.

Growing business software requires safe connections

Leadership decisions control the pace of business changes

Smart software rollouts rely on established economic strengths

Expanding technology requires tying training to daily tasks