Speech by Minister Josephine Teo at the Digital Leaders Accelerator Bootcamp Launch Reception

Thank you for being part of the Digital Leaders Accelerator Bootcamp launch. I am very happy to join you.

When I was on my way here, I was listening to a BBC programme on the radio.

1. This programme talked about how people are using AI. It shared the story of a person who, in a personal context, has found AI helpful in assisting his elderly mother, who is dealing with dementia, to glimpse her past life as a way of interacting with her family and bringing part of her memory back. That's one type of use.

A colleague was just in the UK for a workshop on AI and came back telling me that among the other participants, a good number had been paying attention to what was happening in Singapore.

1. In fact, they read the speech that our Prime Minister made during his budget statement, which had a comprehensive treatment of AI, including the announcement that he would personally chair Singapore's National AI Council.

During the debate on the Budget and the Committee of Supply in Parliament, a Member of Parliament (MP) asked me: “What is the significance of the Prime Minister leading Singapore's National AI Council? Is it meant to be an advisory role?”

1. I told him that the Prime Minister is a very busy person. We appreciate him for giving us advice and guidance, but when the Prime Minister chairs the National AI Council, it means that the entire effort is being elevated.

2. Why? Because we know historically that with any technology, any wave or diffusion of that technology, reaching the furthest corners of the economy and society is not easy.

3. What happens is that you have relatively few companies at the frontier who can take full advantage of the technology, and then they pull ahead, leaving behind a long tail of technology laggards – companies that haven't quite figured it out, or organisations that don't know what to do with the technology or how to benefit from it. The challenge of technology diffusion is a very real one.

Singapore's vision for AI is to ensure that many companies and their employees benefit from AI, not just a few. We are exploring ways to achieve this.

Regarding the programmes we are organising under the National AI Council, there are the National AI Missions, where we have identified four pillars for extensive transformation. These pillars are advanced manufacturing, financial services, connectivity, as well as healthcare

We also have a Champions of AI programme, building on the more than 60 AI Centres of Excellence (CoE) developed in Singapore over the last two years.

These programmes are at the forefront of our agenda through the National AI Council, but we are not stopping there.

We also have the National AI Impact Programme, which focuses on what is referred to as the long tail.

1. We are trying to build momentum amongst at least 10,000 companies, primarily small and medium enterprises (SME), and build up a core of expertise.

2. These are people that we call AI bilinguals, meaning they are skilled with deep knowledge of their specific domains, and are also acquiring familiarity and fluency in AI that makes them bilingual in these two areas.

3. The number we are targeting is not small. We are looking for about 100,000 AI bilinguals, and we will start with professions like accountancy and legal, then work with other professional bodies to extend this further.

Under the National AI Council, we have these activities and efforts intended to give the adoption effort greater momentum, and to ensure we build both breadth and depth in Singapore’s AI ecosystem. That is what the National AI Council is intended to do.

Regarding the foundations we are building on, apart from the AI Centres of Excellence, broad usage in Singapore is encouraging.

1. Three-quarters of our workforce have reported using AI tools, with or without their boss' knowledge.

2. Someone sent me a LinkedIn article this morning stating that Claude from Anthropic reported that worldwide, the two countries with the highest usage of Claude are Israel and Singapore. So at the foundation level, we are strong with good momentum.

Then, when we look at larger firms, at least 60% of them report using AI in some way.

1. Is it for handling customer queries? Is it for improving their efficiency in the finance function or perhaps for code development itself?

2. But when we look at SMEs – the usage rate is much less. It is closer to 15%, which is about a quarter of the usage rate in larger firms.

3. Having said that, compared to just 2023, AI usage in SMEs was around 5% then.

4. From 5%, to a threefold increase to around 15% -- the direction is definitely correct. We want to make sure that SMEs also have the ability to move forward.

One thing we notice amongst the companies we interact with, as well as the intermediaries that help these companies implement AI, is this: very often, and increasingly in the age of AI, the technology is ready, but people may not be ready. Not just the employees, but bosses too.

1. Bosses who do not know what the right ways are to go about it, or bosses who feel that they need a better grasp of the opportunities and the risks before they move to the next step.

Hence, the Digital Leaders Accelerator Bootcamp is meant to help bosses like yourselves become ready.

Regarding AI readiness, there are three areas.

1. First, you need confidence about the direction forward. You need to have confidence:

   1. that the tools can help you in certain ways;

   2. that you know what the risks are;

   3. and to know who you can go to for help.

2. It is foundational that we build confident leaders.

3. The second aspect is capability. Knowing what to do is part of the answer, but you need to know:

   1. how to proceed;

   2. how to identify the right use cases, which improves your chances of success;

   3. and how to build a flywheel so that it's not just the first project that has the highest chance of success, but you are building a system that allows you to innovate continuously.

4. So that is what we are pursuing -- confidence and capability. But I want to add one more aspect which I believe should distinguish how we approach AI adoption and implementation in Singapore.

5. The third aspect is care. We want to do it in a way that considers the impact on employees and how customers feel about the use of AI.

   1. We need to care for other stakeholders, for example, our suppliers and others we interact with, who could be affected by how we choose to use AI.

   2. We have to think carefully about the right ways to design safeguards, and how we will ensure that people impacted by this technology will find it a meaningful interaction and not just implementing AI for the sake of it.

I'm reminded of an article I read in the Harvard Business Review, which was about re-skilling in the age of AI. One of the points made is that as companies, we are accustomed to buying things to move forward, such as skills and expertise.

1. But, a lot of what you are looking for – if you go to the market and say: “I just want to buy it off the shelf” -- either doesn't exist yet, or it exists in a form that is not customised to your needs. Thus, we need to think much more strategically about build.

AI is one of those technologies that people say has a democratising effect. This is true to a significant extent if you know how to use it.

So, building the capabilities and the people in your organisation to use this technology continuously is, in fact, a significant opportunity.

We are no longer limited to looking at what the market offers and buying it off the shelf, but we are looking at the ability to build it in-house and make this part of your success story, that gets repeated over and over again.

So, the Digital Leaders Accelerator Bootcamp – I know it takes time away from your regular priorities, but I'd like to urge you to give it a go and discover how you can be more ready – by building confidence, building capabilities, and doing it carefully to enable your business success to continue year after year.

What is the scale that we are aiming for? The Digital Leaders Accelerator Bootcamp (DLAB) is an enhancement of the Digital Leaders Programme, which has benefited more than 600 companies.

Our aim is to more than triple that, to closer to 2,000 over the next three years, and the DLAB will focus on AI.

The Government will not do this alone. We have always found it much more effective to work with partners. So, I am pleased that for running the bootcamp, we have two partners to start with. They are the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and EY Parthenon -- two very good partners. I believe that the first bootcamp starts next week, and it is already fully subscribed.

Let me say that we are open to having more partners, in different ways.

1. For example, regarding employee reskilling, we are very keen to work with the National Trades Union Congress, a traditional partner of the Government.

We also have with us today some Trade Associations and Chambers (TACs).

1. If they are in the food manufacturing sector, we can ask what are the right ways of using AI? What are some high-potential areas, and what can they potentially do together as a community, rather than individually?

2. In manufacturing, the AI CoEs at the sectoral level found that almost all precision engineering companies need to maintain their CNC machines. But predictive maintenance is not something that each company can work out easily on its own. So, they came together to build a common AI model specifically to figure out predictive maintenance of CNC machines.

3. These are practical things that can be done, not necessarily only at the enterprise level, but across a cluster of companies within the same industry.

4. So, we will be open to partnering with TACs too.

Finally, with all of these efforts in place, what sort of AI landscape do we hope to see?

1. If I could draw a parallel to what we see in the physical world, it would be our cityscape.

2. Sometimes when we travel, we see places where there are skyscrapers that are part of the concrete jungle. But beyond those skyscrapers, you don't see very much else. You don't feel like you enjoy the city, and that it is full of life.

3. That sort of landscape in a city context, if you transpose it to an AI landscape, is not what we want to see in Singapore – not a concrete jungle with only a few skyscrapers.

4. We are interested in the heartlands of the digital domain and our AI ecosystem. We are interested in ensuring that these are equally vibrant, lively, and are places where communities thrive.

5. The way to approach it in the physical domain is that in Singapore’s heartlands, we have the Home Improvement Programme, a neighbourhood renewal programme, a community improvement programme, and a hawker centre upgrading programme -- you name it, we have it.

6. It is exactly the same ethos that we will bring to the AI and digital landscape – so that wherever you turn in our digital and AI domain, you will see thriving neighbourhoods and communities of practitioners that make good use of this technology to bring benefit to the people, employees, and organisations involved.

On that note, I thank you once again for working with us to build this AI landscape that is vibrant in every corner and ensuring that the AI heartland is just as vibrant.