Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong name-dropped two of the nation’s largest corporations throughout his funds handle on Thursday, citing them as function fashions because the Southeast Asian nation embraces synthetic intelligence as a strategy to future-proof its financial system.
The nation is organising a brand new AI council, helmed by Wong himself, to supervise the event and execution of “national AI missions” in 4 key areas: superior manufacturing, connectivity, finance and healthcare.
“Harnessed well, AI will be a strategic advantage for Singapore,” Wong stated throughout his Feb. 12 funds handle. “It can help us overcome our structural constraints—our limited natural resources, rapidly ageing population and tight labor market.”
In his funds transient, Wong introduced a number of different AI initiatives, together with elevated tax deductions and allowances for corporations trying to undertake AI, and the development of a brand new AI park within the nation’s one-north enterprise district. He additionally promised to offer Singaporeans that take AI coaching programs six months of free entry to premium AI providers.
Singapore’s prime minister additionally referred to as on corporations to undertake AI “comprehensively”, and pointed to 2 main Southeast Asia 500 corporations as examples. “A few leading companies like DBS and Grab are already moving decisively on AI transformation,” he stated. Each DBS and Seize, No. 7 and No. 128 on the Fortune Southeast Asia 500 respectively, are early adopters of AI.
How is Seize utilizing AI?
Seize, Southeast Asia’s main ride-hailing platform, has built-in AI throughout its totally different providers, together with deliveries and finance. For instance, Seize makes use of AI to automate menu translations in its meals supply app, permitting clients to simply entry restaurant menus, even when touring overseas.
Throughout an earnings briefing with analysts on Feb. 12, Seize chief working officer Alex Hungate added that the corporate’s in-house AI mannequin now dispatches autos for 90% of ride-hailing requests.
Seize can also be investing in autonomous autos. Final yr, the agency inked strategic partnerships with corporations like U.S.-based Could Mobility and China-based Momenta to advance mixed R&D efforts in direction of autonomous driving know-how, in addition to Chinese language robotaxi agency WeRide for an autonomous shuttle service in Singapore. Seize additionally acquired Infermove, a startup growing autonomous supply robots, in January.
The corporate can also be evaluating new roles for drivers who could also be affected by the unfold of AVs, together with distant security drivers, knowledge labelers, and LiDAR upkeep employees.
Seize reported its first full-year internet revenue on Feb. 12, at $268 million, on prime of $3.4 billion in annual income. But the agency forecast round $4.1 billion in income for the approaching yr, coming in under expectations. Shares in Seize, that are traded on the NASDAQ, are down 15.9% for the yr to date.
How is DBS utilizing AI?
DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest financial institution by property, can also be working to combine AI into its workflow and buyer expertise. CEO Tan Su Shan is a protracted proponent of integrating AI into the enterprise, at occasions admitting that even she has used AI for emergency analysis forward of conferences with shoppers.
The financial institution has additionally developed an AI “co-pilot” for customer support officers, and arrange “DBS-GPT,” a platform to assist staff draft content material and summarize info.
“We invest deeply in our staff—upskilling our people to use AI confidently and reskilling them for new roles in the AI era,” Tan tells Fortune. Whereas DBS equips all staff with fundamental AI expertise, it’s recognized greater than 11,000 people in jobs that might use AI to be simpler for role-specific coaching periods.
The financial institution can also be shifting employees to new roles like AI evaluators, who check and consider the financial institution’s new AI initiatives, in addition to agent monitoring screens, who scan chat logs between clients and the financial institution’s AI chatbot, DBS Pleasure, for attainable hallucinations.
On Feb. 9, DBS introduced a report 22.9 billion Singapore {dollars} ($18.3 billion) in whole earnings for 2025, a report for the financial institution. But internet revenue fell by 3% to hit 11 billion Singapore {dollars} ($8.7 billion). DBS shares are down by 2.3% for the week; the financial institution is now up by simply 1.2% for the yr so far.
Singapore as an AI nation
The Southeast Asian nation of Singapore has lengthy been bullish on synthetic intelligence, placing out an AI technique as early as November 2019, a month after establishing a Nationwide AI Workplace below its Good Nation and Digital Authorities Group (SNDGG), which sits inside the Prime Minister’s Workplace. The workplace’s purpose was introduce AI throughout varied sectors of society, together with transport and logistics, healthcare, training and nationwide safety.
Singapore has since constructed a robust basis for an AI-driven financial system. The federal government labored with over 60 world tech corporations like Google and Microsoft to arrange AI facilities of excellence across the nation.
As a part of its 2026 funds, Singapore’s authorities additionally plans to launch a brand new “Champions of AI” program to offer enterprise transformation and coaching help to corporations aspiring to include AI of their enterprise. Staff in non-tech sectors also can entry the “TechSkills Accelerator” program, which has been expanded to permit mid-career employees to transition into tech roles, together with these within the rising AI sector.
