Through 2030, Singapore will spend more than $779 million on public AI research

Singapore to Invest Over S$1 Billion in Public AI Research Through 2030

The Singapore government will invest more than S$1 billion (about $778.8 million) in public artificial intelligence (AI) research through 2030 to strengthen the country’s AI capabilities and global competitiveness.

In a statement released on Saturday, the Ministry of Digital Development and Information said the funding will focus on priority research areas such as responsible and resource-efficient AI, as well as talent development from pre-university education to faculty-level research. Part of the investment will also support efforts to help industries adopt and apply AI technologies.

The announcement is part of Singapore’s broader push to expand its AI ecosystem. In 2024, the government set aside S$500 million to secure high-performance computing resources needed for AI innovation across both the public and private sectors. It also committed more than S$500 million to AI research and development through AI Singapore, the national programme aimed at building deep AI capabilities.

Earlier, in 2023, researchers under AI Singapore released an open-source large language model called Southeast Asian Languages in One Network, or Sea-Lion, backed by S$70 million in funding. The model has been adopted by companies such as Indonesia’s GoTo.

An updated version of Sea-Lion was released in October 2025. It is built on Alibaba’s Qwen foundation model and includes improved support for regional languages such as Burmese, Filipino, Indonesian, Malay, Tamil, Thai and Vietnamese.