Singapore’s Smart Nation 2.0 policy focuses on AI and building resilience

To keep up with the rapid developments in the technology space, Singapore’s Smart Nation 2.0 will include a S$120 million fund for artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and a new agency to tackle online bullying and other harms.

Announcing the launch of the refreshed vision on Tuesday, Singapore Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Lawrence Wong, said Smart Nation 2.0 would seek to achieve three key goals: Trust, Growth, and Community.

“These goals will serve as a compass, shaping how we use technology to improve citizens’ lives and create a thriving digital future for all,” he added.

The Prime Minister’s announcement was a major update on the original Smart Nation vision introduced in 2014.

As Singapore’s Minister in charge of the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI), Josephine Teo, said in July, AI was an important part of the updated Smart Nation policy.

PM Wong said today's digital landscape vastly differs from a decade ago “when our first Smart Nation plan was launched”.

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He added that the biggest change was generative AI which he described as a “once-in-a-generation” technology.

Cultivating new generation of researchers

The S$120 million investment by the government would be for an “AI for Science” initiative.

Led by the National Research Foundation (NRF), the “AI for Science” initiative will focus on developing and adopting AI methods and tools that are transferable across multiple domains of science to enhance research productivity and advance scientific discovery.

It will fund collaborations between AI researchers and scientific domain experts in thematic areas that are of interest to Singapore, such as advanced materials research and biomedical and health sciences.

In this context, he said the initiative would cultivate a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers who were “bilingual”, or proficient in both AI technologies and one or more scientific domains. Additionally, the fund will support collaborations between Singapore-based researchers and international counterparts to fill in capability gaps and seed new expertise in Singapore.

As part of the effort to the initiative, the government will launch a new Smart Nation Educator Fellowship in 2025. The six-month programme will help senior specialists and teacher leaders better understand the latest digital issues.

The educators would then be able to translate the knowledge and skills they acquire into curriculum design or effective teaching and learning strategies which they would be able to share with other educators.

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Starting next year, the government will also introduce new “AI for Fun” modules that will offer students further opportunities for hands-on exploration and tinkering with technology, such as through the design of prototypes incorporating AI. 

Improving infrastructure resilience

The government will introduce a new Digital Infrastructure Act in 2025 to improve the resilience and security of key digital infrastructure and services.

Noting that disruption was not always caused by cyberattacks, the Prime Minister said the proposed law will go beyond cybersecurity risks to address a broader set of resilience and security risks across systematically important digital infrastructure, ranging from technical misconfigurations to physical hazards such as fires and cooling system failures.

Talking about the new agency for online safety and assurance, a part of the trust aspect of the new policy, PM Wong said it would be backed by a new law to improve protection for victims of online harms.

The law will better enable victims to seek civil remedies against perpetrators of online harms.

The agency will act on behalf of victims to direct perpetrators and online service providers to put a stop to the online harm quickly, providing added assurance on top of existing regulatory levers and court-based processes available today, he said.

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The Prime Minister noted that Singapore had done well with Smart Nation. “But we must never think that we have arrived. Technology is advancing rapidly, and our operating environment is ever-changing. So, we have to keep pace, stay abreast of the latest developments, and continually strive to do better,” he said.

Leaving no one behind

PM Wong said as Singapore navigates the digital age, “we must ensure that our Smart Nation efforts benefit and uplift all segments of society”.

To do that it was essential to uphold “our shared values and aspirations”, the Prime Minister said, adding the government would strengthen digital inclusion, “leaving no one behind”.

The government would use technology to strengthen the government’s partnerships with citizens.

The Prime Minister said the government would continue to launch and support more initiatives that “reimagine and reinvigorate how we connect and our culture through technology”.

The Prime Minister added that Smart Nation 2.0 "is a whole-of-nation movement, with every Singaporean and stakeholder contributing towards building a thriving digital future for all”.