Singtel Partners Digital Industry Singapore for Multi-Year AI Transformation

Singtel Group has announced a strategic partnership with Digital Industry Singapore to accelerate a multi-year AI transformation programme spanning its networks, enterprise platforms, and workforce. The initiative, framed around Singapore's National AI Strategy 2.0, positions Singtel simultaneously as an AI adopter, provider, and enabler — a tripartite role that few telcos globally have attempted at this scale.

In the first phase, Singtel Singapore will receive DISG support to build foundational AI capabilities: hiring and developing AI talent, establishing governance and technology frameworks, and building enterprise advisory expertise. The telco has already trained approximately 13,000 employees in AI fundamentals and targets 3,000 AI practitioners and 300 AI specialists. Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon said the partnership is "a strong vote of confidence in the Group's role in advancing Singapore's AI ambitions and strengthens our position as a leading digital infrastructure and technology partner."

As an adopter, Singtel is embedding AI across customer engagement — real-time assistance, conversational AI, and intelligent routing — and strengthening network architecture toward fully autonomous operations using predictive AI for performance optimisation and recovery. As a provider, its NCS arm develops and deploys enterprise-grade AI platforms across Asia Pacific. As an enabler, the Nxera and RE:AI divisions provide AI-ready data centres, GPU infrastructure, and sovereign cloud platforms for secure AI adoption by enterprises and government agencies.

The partnership also targets broader ecosystem impact: Singtel's AI.dea, Cyber Elevate, and digital literacy programmes aim to strengthen AI, digital, and cybersecurity capabilities for enterprises and communities. Since 2015, the group has digitally enabled over 1 million individuals and small businesses across its markets. Philbert Gomez, SVP and Head of DISG, said Singtel's commitment "serves as a beacon for companies across our ecosystem to start on their AI journeys."

Why it matters for Singapore: Singtel is a bellwether for how Singapore's incumbent industries are adapting to AI — if a regulated, infrastructure-heavy telco can embed AI across its entire operation from networks to customer service to data centres, it sets a template for other traditional sectors like logistics, energy, and transport. The DISG partnership also shows the government's strategy of working through anchor companies rather than relying solely on startups or global tech firms. When Singtel puts 3,000 employees through AI practitioner training and builds sovereign GPU infrastructure, it creates AI capacity that the entire Singapore ecosystem can draw on.