Singapore government first in Asia to deploy agentic AI on Google’s air-gapped cloud

A few years ago, when researchers talked about agentic AI – systems that can make and take decisions independently – it felt like something straight out of Sci-Fi drama.  

Artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) have been largely reactive tools. But this paradigm is shifting, with the Singapore government taking concrete steps to remain on top of agentic AI.

In this regard, the government has announced another tech partnership to implement AI agents in the public sector.

Singapore public agencies, including GovTech Singapore, Home Team Science & Technology Agency (HTX) and Centre for Strategic Infocomm Technologies (CSIT), will be able to access Google’s Gemini models on Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) air-gapped.

This new partnership allows public officers to develop and deploy AI agents while keeping sensitive data within on-premises data centres that are fully disconnected from the public internet. 

Google’s official release said the Singapore government would be the “first in Asia, and among the first worldwide” to do so. 

What public officers can expect 

On August 28, GovTech also announced that it will make available Google Agentspace, a platform by Google Cloud to build, deploy and manage AI agents, to selected public officers. 

These officers will be able to use Agentspace to quickly find information across their work applications and automate complex tasks by using Google’s pre-built AI agents or create their own agents.  

IT administrators can control access and ensure that activity aligns with data security policies. 

GovTech, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Google are also exploring the launch an AI agent sandbox to safely test and refine autonomous agentic solutions for the public sector. 

All Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) agencies will get early access to Google’s Project Mariner computer use capabilities via the Gemini API, an agentic AI tool that can reason, plan and take action on the user’s behalf. 

“Agencies will have a chance to test and evaluate the latest agentic capabilities, assess the risks, develop mitigation measures, and share the lessons learned with the broader community of AI practitioners in Singapore,” said Minister of Digital Josephine Teo at the event. 

The three public agencies and Google will evaluate and refine agentic solutions, and jointly issue recommendations for agentic AI use in Singapore. 

For govtech developers and data scientists, GovTech announced new AI capabilities on its Government on Commercial Cloud (GCC) platform. 

Public agencies can now build secure AI applications using Gemini 2.5 Flash and Vertex AI Search.  

Vertex AI is a platform that allows users to test and compare different industry and open-source models without the need to overhaul their existing applications. 

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Why it matters 

The partnership builds on agentic AI efforts by other agencies, such as the national healthtech agency Synapxe’s partnership with OpenAI to improve the Health Hub app. 

Minister Teo also highlighted in her speech the immediate use cases of agentic AI to improve the productivity and user experience of public services. 

For businesses, this means less confusion when applying for licenses. Instead of calling multiple agencies and navigating various websites, an AI agent could serve as a single point of contact, helping them understand and even schedule the next steps. 

In social services, an AI agent could help individuals find the right support programmes and complete administrative tasks. This allows social workers to spend less time on paperwork and focus on high-impact work like counseling and building relationships. 

Singapore is also using sandboxing approach to safely test and scale emerging technologies. 

“As with all emerging technologies, the government believes we need first to understand how they work and why mistakes happen,” said Minister Teo, highlighting the need to address unintended consequences as well as to establish clear governance, human oversight and accountability. 

She emphasised MDDI’s “active role” in this regard to provide the necessary guardrails for public officers and citizens to deploy agentic AI in a safe and responsible way. 

Around 50,000 public officers in Singapore are already using Pair, the government’s AI chatbot, to build their own bots and use AI to enhance their productivity, writing and research, she said. 

About 18,000 bots have been built to date around query response, data analysis and policy reviews.