6 days ago
Singtel's NCS to invest S$130 million to scale AI adoption in Apac
[SINGAPORE] Singtel's technology services arm, NCS, will invest S$130 million over the next three years to further its artificial intelligence (AI) development across the Asia-Pacific region.
Its investments include the development of an AI suite, six major technological partnerships and developing an AI-enabled workforce.
NCS chief executive officer Ng Kuo Pin said in a press statement on Thursday (Jul 10) that the investments and blueprints will better enable NCS' staff and clients to 'create new business outcomes and build a resilient, innovative future with AI'.
AI application
NCS' AI suite, was officially launched at the company's flagship Impact Forum on Thursday, which was attended by more than 1,200 people.
'From assessment to design to implementation, the NCS Sunshine suite of tools is tailored for developers, IT operations teams and corporate users,' said NCS.
It consists of three components: an AI coding assistant, an AI operation platform and a productivity tool.
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The coding assistant, which is for developers, will support language conversion, test generation and code analysis. The operations platform is designed to automate incident triage, system log analysis and operational task flows.
The productivity tool will 'enhance day-to-day tasks', including summarisation, content retrieval and secure document handling, added NCS.
The company also announced a five-year master agreement with Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) during the forum. NCS said that it will collaborate with HTX to implement next-generation technologies, including AI, data, robotics and quantum-safe solutions across the Home Team's agency.
'The collaboration aims to improve public safety, enhance operational productivity of officers and strengthen the long-term resilience of Singapore's homeland capabilities,' NCS added.
Technological partnerships
Speaking at the event held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong said that NCS will raise its capabilities in AI by deepening its partnerships with technology providers, such as Google Cloud, AWS and Nvidia.
The other three companies partnering NCS are Databricks, Dell Technologies and Sunline.
Each partnership will tap different applications of AI, such as the implementation of agentic and generative AI and accelerating digital transformation.
NCS said that the partnerships demonstrate how collaboration amplifies innovation across fragmented AI landscapes.
DPM Gan said: 'Through system integrators such as NCS, companies can deploy AI more efficiently and more effectively, and in time to come, develop the capabilities to scale their own AI solutions.'
In March, NCS expanded into the Philippines through a joint venture with Globe Telecom. It said that this will add 1,200 technology professionals to its workforce.
'They will complement the existing 13,000-strong NCS workforce across Singapore, Australia, Greater China, India and South-east Asia, enabling NCS to better serve its clients,' said the company.
Empowering the workforce
NCS acknowledged that the advancement of AI may lead to a rise in public concern regarding job displacement and loss of control.
'Yet this presents an opportunity to design AI that augments human capability rather than replacing it, keeping humans in the centre,' it said.
DPM Gan noted that NCS has been investing in developing the AI capabilities of its workforce, and has now trained more than 10,000 of its employees globally to be 'AI-enabled'.
'This will allow NCS to better support its clients, and ensure that its workers are themselves, prepared for the AI revolution,' he said.
NCS currently has over 1,000 professionals certified across major cloud platforms including AWS, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia.
'By working together among government, industry, as well as our unions, we can institutionalise the use of AI within companies, develop AI-driven models and solutions that are locally relevant, and equip our workforce with AI skills, so that we can transform our enterprises and workers to fully harness the power of AI,' DPM Gan concluded.
