SINGAPORE, 21 May 2026: Google and Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) announced on Wednesday an expansion of its long-standing collaboration with the Singapore Government through a new National AI Partnership. 

This partnership aims to harness frontier AI as a force for good – including deploying AI to solve society’s challenges, fostering an AI-ready workforce in Singapore, driving enterprise innovation, and creating a secure ecosystem. It also seeks to advance Singapore’s National AI Strategy to deploy AI at scale for economic growth and public good. 

MDDI leads the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and builds on the success of a 2022 MOU with the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group — the first public-private AI partnership to enhance AI innovation in Singapore. 

A key area of this partnership is accelerating Singapore’s research and development efforts, bolstered by Google DeepMind’s presence in Singapore and a part of its global National Partnerships for AI initiative. These efforts will focus on empowering public agencies and researchers to deploy frontier AI models on high-impact areas, starting with health and life sciences. 

Augmenting care with AI Co-clinicians: In healthcare, Google DeepMind is exploring a collaboration with public health clusters as part of its global AI co-clinician research initiative. It explores how AI can amplify a doctor’s expertise to deliver higher-quality care. It also examines the evolution of healthcare toward “triadic care,” in which AI agents support patients throughout their care journeys under the clinical authority of their physician, with systems that can provide more precise information drawn from clinical guidelines and scientific literature. 

Accelerating scientific discovery: To further accelerate scientific discovery, Google DeepMind is partnering with the National Research Foundation (NRF) to train local researchers on agentic AI tools for science. Tools like Co-Scientist are already showing promise across a range of biomedical applications. Google DeepMind will also host workshops to help the local scientific community use these frontier tools to unlock breakthroughs.

In tandem, Google and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) will collaborate to accelerate the translation of lab discoveries into high-value innovations across materials and life sciences. A*STAR plans to equip its researchers and staff with secure, AI-enabled tools on Google Cloud, including capabilities for hypothesis generation to support scientific research and analysis. By enabling researchers to draw insights from scientific datasets within a governed environment, the collaboration will help strengthen A*STAR’s ability to advance discoveries responsibly while safeguarding intellectual property.

Inclusive Innovation: Google DeepMind is developing a Gemma-powered running assistant for blind and low-vision athletes. By using spatial reasoning to provide real-time environmental understanding, this tool helps athletes run independently without physical lines or human guides. Google DeepMind is also partnering with SG Enable — Singapore’s focal agency for disability and inclusion—to test and iterate on the product so it meets the real-world needs of vision-impaired runners.

Enhancing education and building a future-ready workforce 

To ensure that AI benefits everyone, Google is partnering with the Government to build a future-ready education ecosystem. 

The foundation is already in place. Google has enabled advanced AI capabilities in Google Workspace for Education for all educators, from primary schools to junior colleges. This provides teachers with secure, AI-powered assistance for lesson planning and tailoring course materials, giving them more time to focus on teaching and mentoring students. 

Building on this foundation, the Ministry of Education (MOE) and Google are expanding their collaboration to strengthen MOE’s AI capabilities across teaching and learning, including educator training and upskilling programmes. These efforts are part of MOE’s broader approach to evaluate how enterprise solutions can be applied effectively and scaled to support education outcomes.

Google will also continue to build on its programmes under the ‘Majulah AI’ initiative to empower every segment of the population in Singapore – including the flagship Skills Ignition SG initiative with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) for jobseekers, Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First and AI Cloud Takeoff for startups, entrepreneurs and developers, as well as Gemini Academy for every Singaporean, including our seniors. 

Driving Innovations for Growth

Google will support efforts to drive innovations for growth for enterprises and the local startup ecosystem. Following the launch of its Singapore Engineering Centre, Google Cloud’s expanded team of Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) will help Singapore-based companies further accelerate and scale agentic enterprise transformation.

The new National AI Partnership also builds on Google Cloud’s ongoing work with the likes of AI Singapore (AISG), the Centre for Strategic Infocomm Technologies (CSIT), the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech Singapore), the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX), and the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Creating a secure and trusted ecosystem 

This National AI Partnership also supports Singapore’s ambition as a global AI hub for trust technologies, developing the safety frameworks and tools necessary for the responsible deployment of AI. 

As agentic systems open new possibilities, Singapore is testing how AI agents – specifically “computer use” agents – work in real-world settings to understand their behaviour, potential value and risks, and how governance frameworks may need to evolve to enable their use. A joint whitepaper by Google, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech Singapore), and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) discusses findings and recommendations from their AI Agents Sandbox. These include the best practices necessary for these agents to perform tasks safely and efficiently, such as software testing and social assistance applications. 

Additionally, Google DeepMind is collaborating with IMDA and MLCommons to research multimodal and multilingual safety benchmarks. This collaboration focuses on supporting the safe and responsible deployment of AI that respects the nuance of local languages and cultures, helping ensure that the digital future we build is designed for and with everyone. 

“This partnership builds on years of close collaboration with Google, and we are pleased to take it to the next level. Bringing frontier AI into our public services and enterprises is central to Singapore’s AI ambitions. This partnership, spanning across multiple agencies, allows us to deploy it at scale,” said Mr Chng Kai Fong, Permanent Secretary (Digital Development and Information).

“As Singapore advances its National AI Strategy, the focus now shifts to deploying frontier AI to accelerate real-world impact for the country. Through this expanded partnership with the Singapore Government, we are putting AI into action by combining the best of our technology, R&D expertise, and local talent to accelerate AI for the public good. This also creates a scalable blueprint for responsible AI innovation, built in Singapore for the world,” said Google Singapore Country Managing Director Ben King.