Singapore commits over $778 million to AI research over next six years

Singapore said Saturday it will put more than S$1 billion ($778.8 million) into artificial intelligence research over the next six years, joining a wave of governments across Asia-Pacific pouring money into the technology.

The Ministry of Digital Development and Information said the money will go toward research on making AI systems work better with less power, training people from high school through university level, and helping businesses put AI to work. The announcement, as reported by Reuters, continues a pattern of AI spending that started picking up speed in 2023.

Last year, Singapore put aside S$500 million for powerful computers needed to run AI programs in both government offices and private companies. The government also committed another S$500 million to AI Singapore, a program meant to build up the country’s AI skills from the ground up.

Back in 2023, researchers working through AI Singapore built a language model called Sea-Lion, short for Southeast Asian Languages in One Network.

As reported by Cryptopolitan earlier, the project cost S$70 million, and companies like Indonesia’s GoTo started using it. The team put out an updated version in October 2025 that works with Qwen, a system from China’s Alibaba, and handles languages spoken across the region, including Burmese, Filipino, Indonesian, Malay, Tamil, Thai, and Vietnamese.

Region-wide push for AI dominance

Australia put out its National AI Plan 2025 in December, setting up an AI Safety Institute and laying out plans to build more infrastructure and train workers. Japan moved earlier, passing a law in May 2025 to encourage AI research and development.

The law created an AI Strategic Headquarters led by the prime minister. India joined in during November 2025, publishing official guidance on AI that marks the country’s shift toward formal rules on how the technology should be used.

The rush of government action comes as companies worldwide spend heavily on AI. American firms, not counting the ones building AI systems, spent about $86 billion on the technology in 2025, according to market research. That number is expected to jump to $131 billion in 2026.

But investors are getting pickier about where they put their money. They’re starting to see a difference between companies spending billions to build AI and companies selling the equipment and services those builders need. The ones providing infrastructure are starting to look like safer bets.