NUS, IBM launch centre here that will focus on making AI greener

A new AI centre in Singapore will use patented energy-efficient computer chips to create artificial intelligence models that can provide climate change predictions and aid in the deployment of emergency services to tackle disasters.

- Zhaki Abdullah Correspondent

A collaboration between IBM and the National University of Singapore (NUS), the AI research and innovation centre will focus on making Al greener. It was launched on the sidelines of the IBM Quantum Summit APAC on Oct 23.

With the new centre, IBM’s full-stack AI infrastructure system - the entire spectrum of software and technology required to build, test and deploy an application — will for the first time be installed ona university campus in the Asia-Pacific region.

The infrastructure, which will be deployed at the NUS School of Computing by the first quarter of 2026, will include IBM’s Spyre chips, which are among the company’s Artificial Intelligence Unit (AIU) chips.

AIU is a new chip architecture designed specifically for AI workloads.

IBM has noted that such Al accelerator chips can be up to a thousand times more energy-efficient than the graphics processing units (GPUs) often used for AI.