Committee of Supply 2024 debate, Day 3: Janil Puthucheary on digital technology to meet the needs of citizens and businesses
Digital technology is one of Singapore’s most powerful tools to meet the needs of citizens and businesses, said Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary. Speaking in Parliament on Friday (Mar 1), he said the Government embraces bold development and agile experimentation so that it can wield digital technology to create the greatest possible impact for Singaporeans and for Singapore. At the same time, it must look ahead to the horizon and invest in digital infrastructure research and development to facilitate ahead of time the goals for digitalisation. Dr Janil said so far, this approach has been successful and there is much more that this approach can deliver for Singapore as it enters the second decade of its Smart Nation journey. The Government will be investing up to S$500 million to ensure that Singapore can have sufficient high-performance compute to support its ambitions in innovation and capacity building. These resources will support sectors such as financial, healthcare, transport and logistics. Dr Janil said the Government hopes that this seed funding will catalyse greater development in artificial intelligence (AI) and spur additional industry investment in compute infrastructure. Turning to the Digital Connectivity Blueprint, Dr Janil said Singapore can expect to see bold ideas come to light over the next few years. Within the next five years, the Government is setting aside funds to enhance the capacity of the Nationwide Broadband Network (NBN). Its target is to complete the upgrade to the 10G NBN by 2026 and it expects more than half a million households to sign up for it and benefit from higher-speed broadband in the next five years. Dr Janil said over the last five years, Singapore has invested more than S$500 million in AI research and the investments have borne fruit.
Digital technology is one of Singapore’s most powerful tools to meet the needs of citizens and businesses, said Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary. Speaking in Parliament on Friday (Mar 1), he said the Government embraces bold development and agile experimentation so that it can wield digital technology to create the greatest possible impact for Singaporeans and for Singapore. At the same time, it must look ahead to the horizon and invest in digital infrastructure research and development to facilitate ahead of time the goals for digitalisation. Dr Janil said so far, this approach has been successful and there is much more that this approach can deliver for Singapore as it enters the second decade of its Smart Nation journey. The Government will be investing up to S$500 million to ensure that Singapore can have sufficient high-performance compute to support its ambitions in innovation and capacity building. These resources will support sectors such as financial, healthcare, transport and logistics. Dr Janil said the Government hopes that this seed funding will catalyse greater development in artificial intelligence (AI) and spur additional industry investment in compute infrastructure. Turning to the Digital Connectivity Blueprint, Dr Janil said Singapore can expect to see bold ideas come to light over the next few years. Within the next five years, the Government is setting aside funds to enhance the capacity of the Nationwide Broadband Network (NBN). Its target is to complete the upgrade to the 10G NBN by 2026 and it expects more than half a million households to sign up for it and benefit from higher-speed broadband in the next five years. Dr Janil said over the last five years, Singapore has invested more than S$500 million in AI research and the investments have borne fruit.
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