Google Cloud is providing digital tools to up to 150 Singapore organisations to develop AI solutions and adopt the new technology in their everyday work, through an extended partnership with the government here.
The AI Trailblazers 2.0 programme, a followup to an earlier tie-up last year, seeks to further boost AI takeup in Singapore. For the cloud giant, it also creates early in-roads to the small but significant Southeast Asian market.
Organisations joining the programme will be able to access Google Cloud’s unified AI stack and receive support from Google Cloud engineers, at no cost for up to 10 weeks.
Government agencies and private sector companies can also take advantage of Gemini, Google’s latest AI model, as well as Duet AI for Developers, an AI collaborator that helps developers build and deploy applications faster.
The original AI Trailblazers programme was launched in July last year to spur innovation and adoption in Singapore by providing the foundational building blocks of AI.
It has since addressed more than 100 generative AI (gen AI) use cases from 84 organisations, according to the cloud giant yesterday.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry, for example, built a gen AI-powered conversational agent that helps non-technical users easily retrieve information through queries in natural language. With it, users can obtain data-driven insights and generate charts for their work.
Separately, Nanyang Polytechnic built an AI-powered course content creation system that guides academic staff to create slides, e-learning content and assessment questions, thus cutting the time needed to prepare for a course.
The solution is set to be rolled out for academic staff at the polytechnic. It could also eventually be extended to other institutes of high learning in Singapore.
The AI programme appears to have positioned Google Cloud nicely in Singapore in the rush by organisations big and small to tap on AI.
To rope in government agencies, Google had been the first to provide AI-based cloud offerings to them through the Singapore government’s Artificial Intelligence Government Cloud Cluster (AGCC) launched in May 2023.
Now, for the private sector, Google is taking aim at AI startups as well. In a partnership with EnterpriseSG announced yesterday, it is looking to work with 100 high-potential startups over the next three years to scale up their products.
It is seeking the first cohort of 20 startups for an inaugural three-month programme in April. Successful applicants will receive up to US$350,000 in Google Cloud credits upon graduation.
Like with other Google Cloud startup programmes, these AI startups can expect mentorship and technical support from the cloud company, as well as business connections from ecosystem partners like venture capitalist firms.
