Minister Josephine Teo, Committee of Supply 2026 Speech, Building Singapore’s Capability Advantage in a Digital Age

1. Mr Chairman, I thank the Members for their cuts. Let me start my response in Mandarin please. 

2. 主席先生，转眼间，明天就是元宵节了。过年前，我问妈妈要不要我陪她去买衣服。

3. 没想到，83岁的老人家竟然说：“不用啦！我已经在网上找到自己喜欢的衣服，下了订单。”

4. 我担心她受骗，便问她：怎么知道卖家靠得住？

5. 她自信地回答说：“东西到手，我看到满意后才付钱嘛。”

6. 吃团圆饭那一天，她兴致勃勃地拿新衣服给我看，我才放心。

7. 主席先生，数码科技为我们的生活带来许多便利，企业也因此创造了新机遇，但它也让我们面临前所未有的风险。

8. 同样的，人工智能（AI）技术既有利也有弊。多位议员都提到这一点。

9. 有些国人担心自己会跟不上AI时代的步伐。我自己也有过同样的感受。

10. 但正如总理所说，我们不能因为惧怕AI而裹足不前。

11. 所谓“逆水行舟，不进则退”，其他国家都正在积极开展AI计划。如果我们的行动不够快、布局不够广、扎根不够深，迟早会落后。

12. 关键是，我们的目标要明确、措施要有力。

13. 在AI时代，如何确保国人不掉队，并协助中小企业保持竞争优势，是我们密切关注的核心议题。

14. 就像我母亲，虽然不是数码高手，但在适当的帮助下，也能安全网购。

15. 我们不需要刻意勉强自己成为AI大师，因为每个人掌握AI的能力不一样，受益方式也会不同。

16. 重要的是，我们要保持自信、保住底气，我国才能在AI时代稳步前进。

17. 今年的拨款委员会辩论，数码发展及新闻部将朝这个方向，提出各项计划，确保国人不仅不掉队，还能从中获益。

18. Mr Chairman, AI has taken center stage at this year’s Budget and COS debates. Members have shared optimism about opportunities, and anxiety over impacts on our jobs, creativity, and autonomy.

19. Mr Sharael Taha asked a strategic question about Singapore’s unique positioning in AI.  We are fortunate that:

    1. International counterparts recognise our ability to respond holistically across industries, enterprises and the workforce, through a range of enablers – from R&D and infrastructure to safety and governance.

    2. On the global stage, Singapore is frequently at the table.

    3. Our progressive, thoughtful approach to AI makes us a credible partner and useful reference point.

20. This has made it possible to aim higher.

    1. Prime Minister Wong, DPM Gan and MTI colleagues outlined plans to grow AI Champions and pursue National AI Missions.

    2. Later, MOM and MOE colleagues will discuss how we empower the present and future workforce to make the most of AI.

    3. I will focus on what this means for the broader base of our businesses.

21. In gist, we want to take full advantage of AI’s ability to be democratised, or to put it more simply, for its benefits to spread widely because solutions, once too expensive or complex, are more accessible.

22. But if AI follows the same path as previous technology waves, only a small group of companies at the frontier will get ahead and pull away from the pack.

23. The long tail of smaller, and often less-resourced businesses, take much longer; yet collectively, they employ most of our workforce.

24. When they fall behind, more than GDP is at risk. At stake are our entrepreneurs’ hopes and dreams, workers’ livelihoods, and their communities’ progress.

AI: Deepening Capabilities of Enterprises and Workforce

25. This is why MDDI is creating the National AI Impact Programme, to turn AI’s possibilities into reality for the many, not the few.

26. Today, 15% of SMEs and about 7 in 10 workers use AI in some way.

    1. We want to encourage those who haven’t started to take that first step.

    2. And help those already using AI move beyond basic applications.

27. Over the next three years, the National AI Impact Programme aims to support 10,000 local enterprises to integrate AI into their business processes. This will create a sizable pool of early adopters. They can be multipliers in the community, sharing their experiences and knowledge through the intermediaries that Ms Denise Phua asked Prime Minister about. 

28. Small businesses stand to gain the most. Take Durian Memories for example, a single store seller in Ang Mo Kio. They did not have the luxury of dedicating a team member to handle customer enquiries. Unsurprisingly, they lost sales when hungry durian lovers were not attended to.

29. But Durian Memories tackled this challenge by implementing an AI-enabled Customer Relationship Management system with a chatbot that automatically answers customer queries. As a result, peak sales went up by 30%.

30. There are now many AI tools that improve business operations in simple, effective ways. They make up 30% of the digital solutions on IMDA’s SMEs Go Digital platform today.

31. We will expand the range of AI-enabled solutions with grant support to meet different business needs. More SMEs can then access these pre-approved, cost-effective and market-proven tools to integrate AI readily and affordably.

32. Like Mr Pritam Singh and Mr Muhaimin, we want these solutions to be transformative yet human-centred. At the same time, Mr Mark Lee warns about AI-washing. We will put safeguards in place for grants and incentives whilst trying, at the same time, to not  make the rules too onerous.

33. Some enterprises are ready to do more with AI.

34. Take Mocha Chai Laboratories for example. They are a talented team of multimedia creators who improve film visuals and sound.

35. Unknown to most of us, sound effects are still added manually to films, often taking 4 to 8 weeks. After joining IMDA’s Digital Leaders Programme (DLP) and building up their tech capabilities, Mocha Chai created a new GenAI tool that analyses video footage and automatically generates matching sound effects, reducing weeks of work to just a day.

36. This innovation allowed the company to not only save costs, but create a potential new income stream! It has opened up opportunities for both the business and their employees.

37. We want more success stories like Mocha Chai.

38. But as pointed out by Ms Jessica Tan, Mr Mark Lee, and Mr Sharael Taha, more sophisticated uses of AI require multiple factors to succeed. Often, the technology is ready, but people are not.

39. This is why we are enhancing the DLP and launching a new Digital Leaders Accelerator Bootcamp (DLAB), to build skills and confidence in change management, and not just tech capabilities.

40. We also thank Mr Andre Low, Mr Dennis Tan, Mr Fadli Fawzi and Mr Sharael Taha for recognising the need to plan ahead, as the Government has done, to manage the energy impact of widespread AI use.

41. We do this in several ways.

    1. We are judicious in how we expand digital infrastructure.

    2. When allocating new data centres, we assess how well they use low-carbon energy sources.

    3. We are introducing new sustainability requirements to improve the energy efficiency of older data centres.

    4. And, through the National AI R&D plan, we will support public research in resource-efficient AI to better understand our options. 

42. As more businesses adopt AI, there’s also opportunity to uplift the workforce and help them stay relevant, whether at the entry-level or at later stages of their careers.

    1. Beyond PM’s commitments and MOM’s plans, I want to assure Members like Mr Abdul Muhaimin, Ms Cassandra Lee and Dr Choo Pei Ling that MDDI is focused squarely on this.

    2. We know that PMEs and knowledge workers feel the pressure more acutely.

    3. But many have found ways to be more effective with AI’s help.

43. Take Geraldine Lau, an audit professional who has been with KPMG for 27 years. For each audit, Geraldine pores through reams of documents to assess risk. With employer-provided training, she created an AI agent that automatically consolidates key information from company announcements for audit reviews.

44. The AI agent organises information more quickly than Geraldine can, but her domain knowledge is key to ensuring it looks in the right places.  With hours of manual work saved, she can now focus on deeper risk assessments and applying her human abilities – wisdom, calibration and professional judgement – to more complex work.

45. Geraldine and many PMEs are showing that AI know-how, domain expertise and human touch are a powerful combination. Not all of us can be AI engineers. But we can be “bilingual” in AI and our own areas of expertise, and to solve problems in our domains.

46. For a start, the Government will support 100,000 workers to become AI Bilingual. They will be pathfinders for meaningful AI upskilling, for others to emulate.

47. Our initial focus will be on professions that are highly exposed to AI, and serve multiple industries. IMDA will work with relevant agencies and professional bodies to expand its TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) programme, to develop AI Bilingual workers in key domains.

48. We will start with the Accountancy and Legal professions, and extend our reach to other fields such as HR.

49. As Mr Henry Kwek noted, AI is also transforming the tech sector – many people can now write code and build prototypes with the help of AI.

50. We will therefore enhance the TeSA offerings to help tech workers move up the value chain, from writing code, to orchestrating end-to-end systems powered by AI agents.

 AI: Our Governance Approach

51. With AI evolving quickly, our governance must also keep pace. We agree with Ms Jessica Tan and Dr Choo Pei Ling on risk-based, practical AI governance. Like Mr Christopher de Souza, we believe AI should not replace the discerning human mind.

    1. Our new Model Governance Framework for Agentic AI will help organisations manage systems that can act with greater independence, whilst ensuring human oversight. We are the first government worldwide to introduce such guidelines.

    2. For high-risk, high-impact systems like frontier models, we will progressively strengthen safeguards.

52. However, what we do locally is not enough, a point noted by Ms Tin Pei Ling. The most advanced AI models are developed in only a handful of countries, but their cooperation on AI safety is not deep. 

53. In recent years, Singapore has hosted major AI conferences to promote international cooperation.

54. Last year, we organised the Singapore Conference on AI: International Scientific Exchange on AI Safety.

    1. The exchange brought together world-class thinkers across research, government and civil society, resulting in the Singapore Consensus on global AI safety research priorities.

    2. Recently, at the India AI Impact Summit, I shared that Singapore will host the second edition of the International Scientific Exchange to update the Singapore Consensus.

55. Despite the challenges, we will continue contributing meaningfully to the international discourse on AI safety.

 Upholding Trust in Cyber Space

56. Next, on cybersecurity. Members are understandably concerned about whether our critical infrastructure is sufficiently protected against malicious threat actors, especially state-sponsored ones.

57. I would like to reassure Mr Sharael Taha and Mr Gerald Giam that CSA works closely with domestic and international partners to detect and contain cyber threats.

    1. On the diplomatic front, Singapore recently concluded our chairmanship of the 2nd United Nations Open-Ended Working Group on security of and in the use of ICTs.

    2. Realistically, state-sponsored threat actors are par for the course.

    3. It is nonetheless important to forge international consensus on what constitutes responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.

58. We must, however, not expect these efforts to be a substitute for stronger cyber defense capabilities. In this regard, CSA will focus on three key areas:

    1. First, we will review our cybersecurity standards and requirements for critical information infrastructure owners (CIIOs).

    2. Second, we will provide CIIOs with advanced tools, so that they are equipped to deal with advanced threats.

    3. Third, we will work with partners to build up capabilities in our cybersecurity workforce.

 59. SMS Tan will say more about these efforts.

Upholding Trust in Information Infrastructure

60. Another risk we face is the spread of disinformation and misinformation, fueled by technologies like AI. As a diverse society, we are particularly vulnerable to online falsehoods that erode trust in our society and institutions.

61. Fortunately, we have been strengthening our libraries and archives. They help to nurture a discerning population by cultivating reading habits and information literacy. MOS Rahayu will share more later.

62. Our Public Service Media (PSM) entities too, are important in maintaining trust in our info-space.  I thank Mr Henry Kwek and Ms Tin Pei Ling for recognising this.

    1. Our PSM entities reach over 90% of Singaporeans.

    2. They remain highly trusted by the public, more so than reputable international and online media outlets¹.

63. Consequently, our PSM entities have become indispensable in countering misinformation.

64. MDDI will therefore continue working closely with our PSM entities to maintain their reach and strengthen their fact-checking capabilities.

    1. For example, CNA will set up a digital verification team.

    2. Government agencies have also collaborated with ST on the AskST series to address misinformation.

65. Mr Henry Kwek asked about efforts to help PSM remain relevant, discoverable and financially viable as audience attention and advertising shift towards digital platforms.

    1. Besides delivering timely and credible news, our PSM entities produce content that strengthens our sense of identity as one people. They also play a role in cultivating news literacy among our young, through regular student publications and school competitions.

    2. Given the critical role of our PSM, MDDI will support efforts to keep public service media content visible and easily discoverable.

    3. We are studying approaches in other countries and will consult the industry to ensure that initiatives are implemented reasonably and effectively.

    4. The Government will continue investing in our PSM entities, helping them develop new capabilities as the media landscape evolves.

 Conclusion 

66. Sir, to conclude, the investments we make today will determine whether we lead or lag tomorrow. By accelerating AI adoption, strengthening technology governance, and building discernment amongst our people, we are positioning Singaporeans to seize the opportunities and make progress together.