Google deepens AI investment in Singapore with expanded research & development footprint locally and new national initiatives

This press release was issued by Google.

Google today announced a significant expansion of its AI investment in Singapore, including a larger research & development (R&D) footprint in the country, alongside new initiatives focused on solving societal challenges, driving enterprise innovation, fostering an AI-ready workforce and creating a secure ecosystem. Joined by Minister of Digital Development and Information, Josephine Teo, the announcements made at the second Google for Singapore event are designed to support the country's national AI strategy.

Singapore has served as Google’s Asia Pacific headquarters since 2007, growing to a team of nearly 3,000 employees today. This momentum is built on a US$5 billion investment in technical infrastructure across four data centers and cloud regions, as well as a strong existing research presence, including the establishment of the Google DeepMind Research Lab to advance AI in APAC.

Building on this momentum, Google is further expanding its local R&D footprint in Singapore by investing heavily in human capital – scaling specialised teams across software engineering, UX design, and research science, and a strategic focus on expanding our Cloud engineering footprint. This investment reinforces Singapore's status as a global R&D hub by building deep, local research capabilities that serve the region, as well partnering with global Google teams to develop and export new technologies across Google’s platforms and products. This complements the government’s Singapore’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise Plan (2030) that aims to deepen research capabilities and drive impactful innovation.

Google also announced new initiatives for building an inclusive and responsible AI economy in Singapore, focusing on four key areas: Solving for Society’s Challenges; Driving Innovation for Growth; Building a future-ready workforce; and Creating a secure ecosystem.

Solving for Society’s Challenges

Google is partnering with local organisations to use AI to address critical societal challenges in healthcare, focusing on supporting the development of core AI infrastructure and advancing preventative health for an aging population.

Google has expanded its partnership with AI Singapore (AISG) to support the development of Singapore’s national AI Infrastructure for health. Through access to MedGemma, Google’s open model for medical understanding, the initiative focuses on fine-tuning a foundational health AI model to reflect Singapore's unique healthcare context. This will empower the healthcare ecosystem in the development of AI-assisted applications and solutions tailored to the needs of Singapore's population.

To advance preventative health, Google is collaborating with local health-tech startup AMILI to pioneer a precision nutrition programme that provides personalised lifestyle and nutrition guidance for users. Combining AMILI’s Asian-centric gut microbiome data and nutrition expertise with Google’s cloud and AI technologies like Gemini, the programme tailors nutrition and lifestyle suggestions to users based on their unique microbiome patterns, metabolic health, and goals. To scale clinical and population-level impact, further collaboration with healthcare clusters and health agencies are being explored to bring this tool to Singaporeans as part of a wider precision nutrition programme.

In addition, to continue developing representative language models for Southeast Asia, Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, has provided US$1 million funding to AISG’s Project Aquarium, an open data platform for the region's languages. This funding will improve the quality, and availability of Southeast Asian datasets as well as making them open source to empower more developers to build culturally relevant solutions for the region.

Driving innovation for growth

Singapore has evolved into an international headquarters for many of the world’s most ambitious companies. To foster deeper technical collaborations with these organisations, Google unveiled the launch of its Google Cloud Singapore Engineering Center. This strategic hub houses a new multidisciplinary team of software engineers and frontline support teams who will partner directly with companies to solve high-stakes global challenges while supporting pioneers in frontier industries like robotics, and clean energy.

To provide aspiring entrepreneurs with tools to test and scale their ideas, Google will launch Startup School: Prompt to Prototype – the first in Southeast Asia. This online training teaches founders how to use tools like Gemini and AI Studio to turn their ideas into functional AI prototypes, even without deep coding expertise.

Building a future-ready workforce

Recognising that innovation must be paired with homegrown talent, Google is launching ‘Majulah AI’ , our bold, renewed commitment to fuel Singapore’s next wave of growth. This comprehensive approach brings together Google’s high-touch and scaled initiatives to empower every segment of the population in Singapore – such as Skills Ignition SG¹ with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) for jobseekers, Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First and AI Cloud Takeoff for entrepreneurs and developers, as well as Gemini Academy for every Singaporean, including our seniors.

To broaden its reach and impact, ‘Majulah AI’ rolls out new, additional initiatives targeting youths, educators and professionals.

“Google AI Living Labs” in partnership with the Ministry of Education (MOE) will provide physical innovation labs for students and educators to learn and create with the latest AI innovations through hands-on upskilling workshops and industry collaborations. The first lab has been co-developed and established at ITE College East, with expansion planned for Nanyang Polytechnic and other institutions, aiming to reach 50,000 Singaporeans by 2027.

Google is also partnering with IMDA to roll out the Skills Ignition SG AI Challenge, a new initiative focusing on interdisciplinary application of AI. This three-month accelerator aims to empower 500 graduates and mid-career professionals with hands-on experience integrating AI into non-technical business roles. Participants will learn to design AI-powered workflows for roles across Accountancy, Human Resources, Legal, and Sales & Marketing.

IMDA will partner with Google to shape the curriculum for non-tech professionals, while mobilising Institutes of Higher Learning and industry partners to contribute real-world expertise and drive strong participation in the challenge. To help them take that next step of being job-ready, participants will also receive resume and interview training from Google teams. And at the end of the programme, top individuals will be invited to apply and explore opportunities with teams at Google.

Creating a secure ecosystem

Google is strengthening its capabilities to build safe generative AI, while adopting AI-powered protections to keep Singaporeans safe online.

• Launching an AI Center of Excellence for security: Google is launching a new AI hub in Singapore to carry out research that tackle critical emerging threats – including identifying and getting ahead of risks in frontier areas such as agentic AI, while advancing security, privacy, and content safety on mobile. 
• Age assurance solution rolled out for Singapore users: Google has started rolling out its age assurance solutions in Singapore. This feature provides users estimated to be under 18 with safer, age-appropriate experiences, such as SafeSearch by default and enhanced content restrictions and safeguards on YouTube and Google Play. 

These initiatives build on Google’s deep, ongoing partnerships with government agencies – including the rollout of enhanced fraud protection on Google Play Protect in partnership with the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), which has successfully blocked over 2.9 million high-risk app installation attempts across more than 670,000 devices in Singapore over the last two years since its implementation.

In addition to strengthening its capabilities, Google is also committed to help families develop healthy digital habits. Google has partnered with IMDA and Media Literacy Council (MLC) to train 210,000 parents and children on safe and responsible actions, fundamentals on protecting privacy and addressing misinformation, through the Be Internet Awesome programme, since 2022. This has more than doubled the original goal.