Singapore's role in South-east Asia's AI future

The Republic is actively working with multinational companies to position itself as the region's AI hub.

- Eugene Ho

As the saying goes, "data is the new currency." This rings especially true today, as artificial intelligence (AI) is unlocking business transformation and fueling an incredible surge in data demand across South-east Asia.

At the same time, data and AI capabilities are becoming assets of national strategic importance, particularly in a world of growing geopolitical tensions.

These converging trends raise several questions: Where will all this data reside? How can South-east Asia build the data and energy infrastructure it needs quickly while managing risks? What role can Singapore's public and private sector play in shaping the next phase of the region's digital economy?

A NEW VALUE CHAIN

Looking past the hype, it is clear that AI is a multi-trillion-dollar game, set to drive 3.5 per cent of global GDP in 2030. Next-generation AI applications are evolving beyond mere pattern recognition capabilities to generate new multimedia content and even act autonomously.

This defining feature—the use of multiple modalities including not just text but images, audio and video—as core inputs, is transformative.

Applications include AI tools that respond to environmental changes in manufacturing, mobility and logistics, and chatbots that tailor recommendations to consumers based on visual data.

Alongside the rise of next-generation AI applications is a value chain that is emerging to support it—the platforms that enable the creation and deployment of AI-generated content, and the infrastructure to power and scale platforms and applications.

In particular, the explosion in data volume and real-time processing needs is driving an urgent demand for data centers optimized to handle vast streams of high-resolution image data that go beyond plain text, and at scale.

DATA AND AI AS STRATEGIC ASSETS