IMDA and Microsoft Join Forces on AI Safety Research

Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Microsoft to collaborate on AI safety and security, covering three key areas: technical research, information sharing, and policy development. The partnership brings together IMDA, the Singapore AI Safety Institute, and Microsoft's responsible AI team on joint work including research into agentic AI, development of evaluation benchmarks, and multilingual AI safety.

The agreement was signed on June 12 as global concern mounts over the potential misuse of increasingly capable frontier AI systems — from automated cyberattacks to disinformation at scale. Coordinating Minister for National Security K Shanmugam recently warned that threat actors are harnessing frontier AI to sharpen their attacks, with Singapore's telco sector flagged as especially critical. IMDA deputy CEO Kiren Kumar said the partnership goes beyond developing policy frameworks toward "jointly building benchmarks, tools and other evaluation methods."

IMDA and Microsoft plan to co-author a white paper examining how governments and infrastructure operators can responsibly structure access to frontier AI models, working with other Singapore government agencies. The paper will address both demand-side needs and supply-side policy considerations for model providers. Microsoft's chief responsible AI officer Natasha Crampton said Singapore is "playing a key role in shaping global discussions on responsible AI."

Why it matters for Singapore: This puts Singapore ahead of most regulators globally — instead of writing rules from a distance, IMDA gets hands-on experience building the actual testing tools and benchmarks that will define AI safety standards. For a small country with big AI ambitions, direct collaboration with a frontier model developer is the smartest way to stay relevant in a conversation that's otherwise dominated by Washington, Brussels, and Beijing.