Singapore's AI Ambitions: Competing with Global Giants in the AI Race

Singapore's minister says AI is not the new oil -- it's way better

For years, commentators compared data to one of the world's most important commodities: Oil. Much like how massive oil reserves conferred wealth and power on the world's petrostates and fossil-fuel firms in the 20th century, countries and companies with lots of data could leverage that resource in the 21st century. The argument is taking on greater relevance with the rise of AI: Large countries like the U.S. and China can train their AI models on massive amounts of data, while smaller economies, with less data on hand, just can't keep up. But Josephine Teo, Singapore's minister for digital development and information, argued at the Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore conference on Tuesday that oil is the wrong comparison to make when talking about how countries use data. Unlike oil -- a finite resource that goes away once extracted and used -- data can be "recombined" many times over, she said. "Data is actually more useful when it is reused in many different contexts." Singapore adopted an AI strategy in 2019, and is now trying to leverage its existing strengths as a trade and travel hub to bolster its development of the new technology. "We aren't trying to be an AI superpower. We don't need to be," Teo told Fortune in a recent feature on the country's plans for AI. On Tuesday, Teo suggested the country's vibrant economy is one way Singapore can get access to the data it needs. "If you consider the size of our GDP, and use it as an indication of the breadth and depth of activities that are taking place in Singapore, and that every single one of those activities generates a data point-then maybe the data is not as small as we think it is," she explained. Still, the Singaporean minister noted some potential challenges to the country's AI hopes. "In any new field, the pool of talent is always going to be a concern," she said. "It's not broad enough, it's not deep enough." But she pushed back against suggestions that the country's brief moratorium on data centers had hindered the country's attractiveness as an AI hub. In 2019, the Singaporean government briefly paused approvals of new data centers, due to concerns about land use and power consumption. Operators fled elsewhere, including to neighboring Malaysia, which is now attracting billions of dollars in investment from Big Tech companies like Microsoft and Google. But Teo argued Singapore, with 70 data centers, has one of the world's "densest data center capacity." "If you look at our data center capacity relative to the size of our GDP, and if you compare it to say Japan or if you compare it to China, actually we have way more," she claimed. While Singapore is open to having more data centers, "the question is how do we do it whilst also being able to fulfill our commitments to the net zero pathway," she asked. The answer is "tropical [data center] standards," she said. "If you're operating the data center in a tropical climate, do you need to operate it at a temperature that is so low? Or [is it that] actually with one degree higher, you're OK?"

Can the rest of the world catch up to the U.S. and China on AI? 'Make a virtue of your small size,' experts say

The U.S. and China, the world's largest and second-largest economies respectively, are currently the world leaders in A.I. research. Both superpowers also boast more companies and capital than anyone else. But perhaps size doesn't matter, and smaller countries like Singapore can keep pace in the race to adopt AI, experts said Tuesday at Fortune's Brainstorm AI Singapore conference. "It's pretty clear from the outset that a country like Singapore could never compete with China and the U.S. in terms of scale," said Simon Chesterman, vice provost at the National University of Singapore and a senior director at AI Singapore, an organization that aims to build an AI ecosystem in the Southeast Asia country. But "if you can't beat them on quantity, you can at least try to compete on quality," Chesterman said, arguing that countries need to "make a virtue of your small size." Singapore is the third-highest economy on Tortoise Media's global AI index, behind just China and the U.S. and ahead of larger economies like Germany and Japan. The country's core pillars are "infrastructure, talent and adoption," said Serena Cesareo, a senior researcher at the London-based news organization. In terms of land area, Singapore is smaller than New York City, and its size could help the government roll out its AI strategy more effectively. That compactness can help "make industries more competitive, deliver government services better, and help citizens understand and interact with [AI] technology in a way that builds confidence and trust," said Andrea Phua, senior director of the national AI group in Singapore's Ministry of Digital Development and Information. It's not about "using AI for AI's sake," she said, but instead about using it properly, making Singaporean companies and people comfortable with using AI applications, and in turn promote innovation. One way AI applications get better is by getting more users-and in turn getting more data. Singapore's focus is getting the entire workforce-not just machine learning engineers and data scientists-comfortable with AI, Shameek Kundu, a member of the Singapore government's AI advisory council, said. He cited the Singapore Academy of Law, and its advice to lawyers on how to use generative AI, as an example. Chesterman explained AI's not just about the data, the computational power, or the hardware, but it's also about investing in the talent to take advantage of AI developments. He compared AI to previous technological revolutions like electricity. "Not everyone needs to be an electrician, but you need to know how to develop tools that will use electricity, or apply electricity in new ways," Chesterman said.