On the 10th anniversary of AWS Summit in Singapore, AWS announced that it will support Singapore’s Smart Nation and National AI Strategy 2.0 (NAIS 2.0) goals with a new flagship AI programme, AWS AI Spring Singapore. This is a multifaceted collaboration with the Singapore Government, public sector, and enterprises to help fast-track the adoption of AI and generative AI in Singapore across six strategic pillars - Public Sector, Workforce, Enterprise, Startups, Communities, and Research and Development. Underpinning this commitment are AWS’s plans to invest an additional S$12 billion into its existing cloud infrastructure in Singapore from 2024 to 2028 to meet growing customer demand for cloud technology and services in the country.
AWS AI Spring Singapore: Uplifting Enterprises and the Public Sector
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most transformational technologies today, tackling some of humanity’s most challenging problems, augmenting human performance, and maximizing productivity.
AWS AI Spring Singapore aims to further catalyse AI activities, and drive benefits to AWS’s customers, partners, and community: AI Spring Public Sector to collaborate on driving AI initiatives within the Singapore Government and government agencies to benefit industries and citizens; AI Spring Workforce, a series of AI skilling and professional certification programmes; AI Spring Enterprise to drive AI adoption in local enterprises; AI Spring Startups to nurture core AI startups in Singapore; AI Spring Communities to contribute to community development with AI; and AI Spring Research and Development (R&D) to drive R&D for and with AI.
“With AWS AI Spring, we are eager to embark on this collaborative AI journey with the Government and customers to unlock the potential of AI, and accelerate Singapore’s Smart Nation vision and goal to become a beacon in the international AI field,” said Elsie Tan, Country Manager, Worldwide Public Sector, Singapore, AWS. “By leveraging AWS’s broadest and deepest set of artificial intelligence and machine learning services, cloud infrastructure, and network, AWS will empower local organizations and students to tackle unique challenges, unlock new opportunities, delight customers, and scale in a secure, resilient, and sustainable manner.”
As part of AI Spring Enterprise, AWS signed a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) with the Infocomm and Media Development Authority (IMDA) to leverage services like Amazon Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker, and Amazon Q to develop an AI adoption programme for local enterprises to use and scale AI for the most impactful use cases across their businesses. This MoI is a part of IMDA’s GenAI x Digital Leaders initiative to help digitally mature local companies innovate, develop, and deploy their own customized generative AI digital solutions. In collaboration with IMDA, AWS will conduct technology discovery workshops to raise a company’s understanding of generative AI, providing expert advice to help identify and prioritize use cases that meet business needs.
“We believe that AI can be harnessed by enterprises to transform and stay ahead,” said Mr Leong Der Yao, assistant chief executive, Sectoral Transformation Group, IMDA. “In 2023, IMDA supported over 3,000 SMEs to adopt AI-enabled pre-approved solutions. Earlier this year, we also launched the GenAI Sandbox for SMEs and GenAI x Digital Leaders initiatives to enable our SMEs to adopt generative AI technology to generate greater business value. Building on this, we are excited to partner with AWS to uplift and empower our enterprises in generative AI. AWS, as a key global partner, will bring the necessary expertise to support IMDA’s GenAI x Digital Leaders initiative to help our digitally mature local companies identify and develop AI solutions for business transformation and growth. We are also working with AWS to incorporate AWS Training and Certification programmes in polytechnic and ITE curriculums. IMDA will continue to collaborate with AWS to upskill and reskill professionals in roles such as AI and Analytics.”
AI Spring Public Sector will see close collaboration between AWS and Singapore Government agencies to enable and accelerate AI adoption within the public sector and adjacent industries. AWS also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Singapore's healthtech agency, Synapxe, to collaborate on a data and AI platform that will enable healthcare providers to utilize data analytics and AI across healthcare systems.
“The inking of the MOU with AWS reflects our mutual commitment towards enabling our public healthcare users with leading edge cloud-native analytics tools. It will catalyse more efficient analyses towards actionable insights, and transform the way we enhance the quality of healthcare for Singapore,” said Ngiam Siew Ying, CEO, Synapxe.
Upskilling Singaporeans to be Future-Ready
A recent study by AWS and Access Partnership found that hiring AI-skilled talent is a priority for over eight in ten (81%) Singapore employers, of which 74% can’t find the AI talent they need.
Through AI Spring Workforce, AWS will offer a comprehensive suite of cloud and AI skilling and professional certification programs to people in Singapore. AWS will collaborate with institutes of higher learnings (IHL) like universities and polytechnics, and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) for AI education. To kick off AI Spring Workforce, AWS signed a MoU with ITE to incorporate AI education into ITE’s curriculum, with an aim to train 5,000 individuals across these learning institutions on AI skills yearly from 2024-2026. This will help advance the Singapore Government’s goal to triple the pool of AI practitioners to 15,000 over five years. AWS’s generative AI services will also empower teachers and students in IHLs, facilitating their learning, exploration, and experimentation with the technology.
“ITE intends to equip all her students with AI and Gen-AI understanding and competencies to ensure they are industry-ready, job-ready and future-ready. AWS expertise and programmes will accelerate ITE’s plans for the students and staff to learn prompt engineering and start to use Gen-AI and LLM in their learning, projects and work. ITE and AWS will also conduct short CET Gen AI courses for the public and workers to support the upskilling of Singapore’s workforce,” said Low Khah Gek, CEO, ITE.
AWS Singapore’s Continued Commitment to Advance Singapore
According to a new AWS Economic Impact Study (EIS), the S$12 billion investment from 2024 to 2028 into its existing cloud infrastructure will double the total planned investment to more than S$23 billion by 2028. This planned investment, in addition to previous investment commitments, is estimated to contribute S$23.7 billion to Singapore’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2028. It will also support an estimated average of 12,300 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs in local Singapore businesses each year. These positions, including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and other jobs within the country’s broader economy, will be part of the AWS data center supply chain in Singapore.
“AWS has been deeply committed to helping Singapore grow its economy, workforce, and digital prowess with cloud and advanced technologies since it launched its first Asia Pacific infrastructure Region here over a decade ago,” said Priscilla Chong, Country Manager, Singapore, AWS. “AWS is doubling down on its cloud infrastructure investments in Singapore from 2024 to 2028 to support customer demand, and help reinforce Singapore’s status as an attractive regional innovation launchpad, and a global leader in digital competitiveness. This investment will create a ripple effect across Singapore by increasing economic growth and cloud adoption. It also brings additional contributions to the local economy by AWS, such as upskilling the local digital workforce, developing renewable energy projects, and creating a positive impact in the communities where AWS operates.”
Beyond Cloud Investment – Sustainability, and Community Development
Amazon is also committed to investing and innovating in sustainability across its businesses to create a more sustainable future. Amazon co-founded and became the first signatory of The Climate Pledge in 2019, and committed to become net-zero carbon by 2040. Today, more than 400 organizations globally have signed the Pledge, including Neuron Mobility, SAITECH Ltd, and Terrascope in Singapore. As part of its Pledge commitment, Amazon is on a path to match all of its global electricity use with 100% renewable energy by 2025 – five years ahead of our original 2030 target.
In Singapore, Amazon has invested in two renewable energy projects – a 62 megawatt (MW) solar project with Sunseap, and a 17.6 MW project with Sembcorp. Combined, these projects will generate enough renewable energy to power nearly 20,000 Singaporean homes each year. The Sunseap project is made up of a series of solar panels mounted on a ground system to optimally position the system to capture sun exposure as weather conditions change. The Sembcorp project, now operational and contributing to the local grid, has 33,580 solar panels installed across two sites, with an integrated rainwater harvesting system.
Furthermore, AWS has committed to becoming water positive (water+) by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations. Today, all of AWS’s data centers in Singapore use recycled NEWater, and AWS has collaborated with a local startup, Hydroleap, to pilot and deploy a water recycling system that significantly improves the efficiency of AWS’s cooling towers. To further improve water efficiency, AWS uses real-time water-use data to identify leaks, pilot new treatment technologies, and integrates rainwater harvesting to take advantage of Singapore’s high rainfall to supplement its water needs. AWS was recently awarded the Singapore Watermark Award for 2024 and the Water Efficiency Award in the data centre category by PUB, Singapore’s national water agency.
AWS is also committed to creating a positive difference through its community engagement initiative, AWS InCommunities. In 2022 and 2023, AWS InCommunities sponsored the Science Centre Singapore’s Youth STEM Empowerment programme, guiding students to develop innovative products and solutions to solve real-life community problems using Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). AWS InCommunities also collaborated with Junior Achievement Singapore to launch the “Fun with AR/VR Coding” programme for four secondary schools in Singapore, reaching nearly 800 students. AWS InCommunities and local AWS employees also regularly volunteer with welfare organisations including the youth entrepreneurship-focused Halogen Foundation and the children’s cancer non-profit Hair for Hope.
For over 10 years now, we’ve been investing in Singapore so that customers of all sizes can have access to the broadest and most comprehensive cloud. On our 10th year anniversary of AWS Summit in Singapore, these commitments deepen that resolve.
