January 27, 2026
Singapore – More than 60 centers of excellence dedicated to advancing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) across a variety of sectors have been established here.
On 24 January, Digital Development and Information Minister Josephine Teo announced a $1 billion national plan to strengthen similar AI research capabilities in public research institutions, as Singapore doubles down on its AI ambitions.
The five-year plan to 2030 envisages the establishment of Research Centers of Excellence (RCE) to host teams of researchers to study AI models and technologies that are central to a variety of applications.
These RCEs complement the current network of more than 60 AI Centers of Excellence that technology companies have launched in collaboration with governments to help accelerate AI adoption in enterprises. However, the number of RCEs will be reduced and each center will be supported by larger investments.
Here’s a look back at some of the key centers of excellence and institutes that companies across sectors like finance, transportation, and agriculture have established to drive AI adoption.
Singapore is home to Swiss Bank’s largest and first AI and transformation factory, with over 150 employees comprising programmers, data scientists and product managers.
During a media tour in October 2025, the team demonstrated products developed in-house, including AI-powered tools that help employees reduce the time they spend conducting background checks on wealth management clients.
This process traditionally takes two weeks, but tools like this can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to complete this tedious process.
More than half of the division’s employees come from non-technology fields, including Ruth Hon, who led the design of the Know-Your-Client tool after working in the bank’s operations team.
Teo said during the tour that the presence of employees who understand business process problems, as well as data scientists and AI experts such as machine learning, is critical to strengthening the sector’s competitiveness.
The homegrown gaming company announced plans to establish an AI Center of Excellence at its Southeast Asia headquarters in August 2025, while also hiring 150 engineers, data scientists and game developers to help implement AI in its core operations.
The center creates tools that engage gamers and help developers automate with AI. These 150 hires are expected to be familiar with these tasks.
Among the tools featured at the center is Razer QA Companion, which provides quality assurance testing and bug detection, allowing developers to reduce production costs and cut the time needed to bring games to market in half.
The tool was in beta testing with more than 50 major game studios and independent studios, which Razer declined to name for confidentiality reasons.
The company will also collaborate with AI Singapore and higher education institutions to provide hands-on training in AI and machine learning through internships and assignments.
Under its new AI and Quantum Computing Center of Excellence, launched in October 2025, the agriculture and food company aims to work with higher institutions and start-ups to address challenges in livestock and food production.
The company has several agreements in place, including a collaboration with Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) to use computer vision to support quality inspection in food processing.
The company will also work with Nanyo Riko to develop AI prototype solutions and provide training programs for developing digital human resources.
These partnerships will build on the company’s growing use of AI in the region, including test pilots in Indonesia and Vietnam that use AI to monitor farm operations in real time, Japfa said in a media release.
The ride-hailing company launched an AI center of excellence at its OneNorth headquarters in May and announced plans to hire at least 50 product, engineering, data science and analytics experts by the end of 2025.
At the launch, Grab introduced a series of AI-powered tools it has been working on integrating into its app, including a voice assistant feature that allows visually impaired users to book rides using voice commands.
The tool uses OpenAI’s large-scale language model, fine-tuned with audio samples provided by local employees to understand Singaporean accents and pronunciations.
Another tool includes data collection from in-vehicle dashcams that can capture the presence of flooding, heavy rain, and traffic conditions, allowing drivers to receive accurate flood warnings. This will help minimize traffic disruption during heavy rain.
The US tech giant will build on existing efforts to improve the ability of AI models to understand regional languages and cultural nuances through a new AI research lab.
This includes collaboration with AI Singapore on Project Aquarium, a platform that sources data for Southeast Asian languages. This will help develop Singapore’s indigenous AI model Sea-Lion, which recognizes 13 regional languages including Malay, Tamil, Thai and Vietnamese.
Working to understand the language capabilities of the model also extends to historical text and audio, and also includes culturally relevant visual cues.
Google’s core AI research team will also partner with local institutions and academic institutions to improve the inference capabilities of the AI model Gemini and create solutions to tackle global issues such as energy, healthcare, and climate.
Microsoft’s first research lab in Southeast Asia will open in July 2025 and focus on projects such as creating AI models to help local manufacturers manage increased costs due to supply chain disruptions.
The institute is staffed by a team of newly hired researchers at the company’s offices on Cecil Street. Peter Lee, president of Microsoft Research, said Singapore was a good place to develop and test such a model because of its status as a port city, as well as its high level of manufacturing sophistication.
The company will also seek local collaborators to apply advanced AI technology to other key sectors such as finance and healthcare.
For example, we want to incorporate news insights and company earnings reports to create an AI model that can more accurately predict the direction the market will take.
Founded by SIT and chip manufacturing giant Nvidia, the center has worked with 70 companies to develop 50 AI solutions in the manufacturing, healthcare and transportation sectors since its opening in 2024.
To complement applied AI research, the center launched a new training initiative in October 2025. It aims to train over 200 new graduates and mid-career professionals as AI practitioners over the next three years.
Participants will be trained to develop skills to develop AI applications using AI tools, libraries, and algorithms. We will also work with industry partners on projects that use AI to solve real-world business problems under the supervision of instructors and experts at the Center and SIT.
