Singapore, US expand AI partnership to focus on upskilling youth and women

Singapore and the US are widening their collaboration on synthetic intelligence (AI) to give attention to build up expertise amongst youth and girls. 

A brand new AI Expertise Bridge initiative expands on the US-Singapore Girls in Tech Partnership Program that the 2 nations launched in 2022. The most recent plan goals to bolster expertise in rising expertise, together with AI, with an emphasis on youth and girls, in keeping with a joint assertion launched by US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Commerce and Business Gan Kim Yong. 

To be rolled out within the coming months, efforts listed here are a part of the Partnership for Development and Innovation pact that the 2 nations launched in October 2021 to determine bilateral commerce alternatives, particularly throughout these 4 areas: digital economic system and good cities, provide chain, healthcare, and clear power and environmental expertise. 

The pact encompasses shared aims to faucet the advantages of AI and “harness its potential for good,” the 2 authorities businesses stated. “The US and Singapore have prioritized growth and adoption of interoperable governance frameworks for the trusted, secure, safe, and accountable growth, deployment, and analysis of AI applied sciences,” they stated. 

Final October, Singapore’s Infocomm Media Improvement Authority (IMDA) and the US Nationwide Institute of Requirements and Know-how (NIST) stated each nations had synced up their respective AI frameworks to ease compliance and can proceed to drive “secure, reliable, and accountable” AI developments. 

The mapping train between IMDA’s AI Confirm and NIST’s AI Danger Administration Framework goals to harmonize worldwide AI governance frameworks, supply larger readability on necessities, and scale back compliance prices. 

Transferring ahead, Singapore’s Ministry of Communications and Info (MCI) will set up an AI dialog with trade and authorities representatives to debate the 2 nations’ investments, governance fashions, and workforce growth in AI. 

With the brand new AI Expertise Bridge plan, the Ministry and the US Division of Commerce goal to proceed their AI partnership to advance “an inclusive and forward-looking agenda” for financial development and to spice up AI competitiveness for each nations. 

“We consider the rise of AI, together with generative AI (GenAI), brings with it new and growing alternatives, together with the flexibility to reinforce financial and social welfare and digital inclusion, to speed up and advance socially useful analysis and scientific discovery, to assist extra aggressive and environmentally sustainable financial development, and to advertise honest and aggressive markets,” MCI stated. 

The ministry stated nearly 6,000 US organizations presently function in Singapore, with bilateral commerce supporting almost 250,000 jobs throughout the US. 

In keeping with MCI, expertise spending in Singapore tipped at SG$22 billion (USD$16.3 billion) final yr, whereas US firms’ present and dedicated capital investments in AI over the subsequent few years, alongside Singapore enterprise companions, have exceeded SG$50 billion (USD$37 billion). Organizations from each nations even have pledged to spice up the AI capabilities of greater than 130,000 staff in Singapore.

Their joint efforts in AI governance additional point out a have to mitigate the challenges that include the speedy adoption of AI. 

“Either side acknowledge that the testing and analysis of AI applied sciences ought to take into consideration trustworthiness issues that may assist the aims of AI governance frameworks,” MCI stated. 

“We consider AI governance ought to take into accounts related worldwide requirements and internationally acknowledged rules and tips, together with these on explainability, transparency, accountability, equity, inclusivity, robustness, reproducibility, safety, security, information governance, human-AI configuration, inclusive development, and societal and environmental well-being.” 

NIST and IMDA will proceed to collaborate on the subsequent era of AI, together with mapping their respective frameworks for GenAI, spanning testing, tips, and benchmarks,

Additionally, the US AI Security Institute, which sits below NIST, and Singapore’s Digital Belief Centre, which is funded by IMDA and Nationwide Analysis Basis, will work collectively to advance the science of AI security. This can present a essential hyperlink in a worldwide community of AI security institutes and different government-supported scientific establishments, MCI stated.