Singapore’s tech news, quarterly
December 2023 | November 2023 | October 2023
Singapore’s tech news in Q4 2023 touched on items including: Singapore’s bid for an Asia-wide AI LLM to address SEA’s range of languages; Japan-Singapore collaboration on the Singapore National Quantum-Safe Networks project; Singapore-driven cross-border payments between Asia and the Middle East; and more.
Other editions: Asia’s tech news, daily (via LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter/X); and Indo-Pacific technology newsletters, weekly.
Also available:
Critical technologies news across Q4 2023
Critical technologies, quarterly: Q4 2023 news summary
December 2023
Microsoft: New Future Of Work Report 2023
- An intro to Fr8Labs, focusing on the logistics industry with SaaS operating system and with plans for an ‘open ecosystem’ allowing participation via APIs
- Japan’s Toshiba and Singapore’s SpeQtral boost existing collaboration around quantum key distribution hardware to deliver Singapore’s National Quantum-Safe Networks+ project
- Singapore looks to triple pool of AI-skilled workers, including scientists and engineers, to deliver on national AI strategy, with target of 15000, alongside chipmaker and cloud provider partnerships
- Insights on APAC’s food-tech scene from 4 CEOs, from the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit, part of Singapore International Agri-Food Week
MERICS: Fragmenting Cyberspace – The future of the internet in China
- Singapore: Coda Payments, backed by GIC sovereign wealth fund, looks to grow payments business beyond gaming revenue with addition of creator and companies focus, pitching as alternative to Big Tech
- Singapore: Meatiply raises $3.75M with cell-based cultivated meat, looking also at ‘functional ingredients’ approach to produce hybrid products for health and wellness markets
- Singapore-based Bitsmedia, creator of Muslim Pro lifestyle app, gains $20M, with sights on AI platform development and market growth across Gulf countries and the US, UK, Indonesia and Malaysia
- China’s WeRide gains Singapore licenses allowing self-driving ‘robobuses’ to test on public roads in areas including the One North tech cluster and the National University of Singapore
- Singapore’s FOMO Pay and UAE’s Zand Bank partner for cross-border payments, B2B transactions and int’l remittances between Asia and MENA countries
pwc Digital Trust Insights 2024
- Singapore’s Pave Bank launches with $5.2M funding and digi-bank license in Georgia, Eastern Europe, with services including ‘programmable’ banking and seeing bridging opportunities between Asia and Europe
- Singapore-Indonesia Jagat social network breaks 10M user target with location-based approach pushing users to make in-real-life connections and friendships
- Singapore: National Multimodal LLM Programme launched recently, a S$70M initiative to develop the region’s first large language model ecosystem catering to SEA‘s range of cultures and languages >>>
Build skilled AI talent in Singapore by providing funding and access to high-end computing for local researchers and engineers. This effort will enable the development of a pool of skilled AI professionals to drive innovation and technological excellence in developing AI solutions in Singapore.
Foster a thriving AI industry to develop LLM-enabled solutions for greater productivity and new opportunities for businesses. This programme will foster collaborations with industry partners to provide a conducive environment to catalyse the development of novel AI enterprise use cases in a rapidly evolving landscape of AI technology.
Enable Singapore to build a trusted environment in using AI, as the programme will provide a deeper understanding of how LLM work and further research AI governance. The NMLP will develop a base model with regional context that can understand Singapore’s and the region’s unique linguistic characteristics and multi-lingual environment.
- Singapore: Atomionics rolls out ‘virtual drill’ tech using gravity and AI to define ore bodies, looking to cut customer costs and development times for minerals projects
- Singapore: University researchers and EtaVolt startup presented a high-intensity illumination device capable of ‘patching’ wear and tear in solar panel cells, claiming boosted unit life of up to 5 years
PwC Digital Payments Survey 2024: Southeast Asia landscape
- Singapore’s Golden Gate Ventures VC firm opens Middle East and North Africa office in Saudi Arabia, looking to capitalize on the MENA startup ecosystem
- Singapore’s Seraya Partners private equity firm raised $800M for Asia infrastructure fund focusing on digital infrastructure and energy transition investments, with AIIB amongst backers
- Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority inks MoU with China’s Tianjin Municipal Transportation Commission to develop Tianjin Green and Digital Shipping Corridor, involving multiple stakeholders and institutions >>>
The MPA released a statement emphasising the green corridors’ purpose: “The Singapore – Tianjin Green and Digital Shipping Corridor will serve as a valuable testbed for both countries to pilot and trial digital solutions, alternative fuels and technologies, and facilitate talent development to support the decarbonisation and digitalisation of shipping”.
This involves higher education institutions, and industry stakeholders including shipping lines, port operators, shipbuilders, classification societies, and bunker suppliers.
- Singapore and China to work on cross-border ‘digital yuan’ pilot project, building on 2020 digital finance MOU, allowing travelers from both to use e-CNY locally
- From e27: Snapshots of the 2023 startup ecosystems in The Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand
Deloitte TMT Predictions 2024: Gen AI, sustainability, tech, media & telecom
November 2023
- Singapore: Monetary Authority and IMDA jointly publish paper proposing Shared Responsibility Framework assigning financial institutions and telcos with duties, and victim payouts, around phishing scams
- Enterprise Singapore unveils new Global Innovation Alliance nodes in Mumbai, Melbourne and Sydney, aiming to further facilitate Singapore tech and startup collaborations
- Tech in Asia to be acquired by Singapore Press Holdings Media, the parent firm of The Straits Times and The Business Times newspapers
- Singapore: Authentick raised $4M with Authentickator NFT platform to simplify exploring, purchasing and authenticating digital collectibles and NFTs, notably without users requiring a crypto wallet
- Singapore: A brief intro to the 6 tech startups selected for Singtel Group Future Makers 2023, working in counselling, aged care, budgeting and more
KPMG: Venture Pulse Q3 2023 Report – Asia findings
- Singapore: BondbloX secured $6M Series B with blockchain-based digitisation of bond markets
- Singapore: dtcpay to launch system using fiat and crypto for in-store and online payments, partnering China’s PlatON and Allinpay Int’l for blockchain, terminals and interfacing
- Singapore’s REVIVO BioSystems takes overall DeepTech Startup of the Year win at X-PITCH 2023 global startup competition, focusing on 4D human tissue testing models
- Singapore: Paxos blockchain firm gains in-principle approval to issue a stablecoin, pegged to the US dollar and backed one-for-one by the dollar and cash equivalents
“Stablecoins and central bank digital currencies, not crypto, will be part of the financial ecosystem in the future, the managing director of Singapore’s central bank said…”
- Singapore: BeeX raised $2M with autonomous underwater robotics, focusing on infrastructure maintenance, and monitoring in maritime, energy and defense sectors
- Singapore: Aqualita Ecotechnology launches ‘Our Fish Storey’, testing feasibility of farming jade perch in shipping containers
- Singapore: An intro to Nutrition Technologies, farming fly larvae for animal feed and fertilizers
- Singapore’s WindApp raises $3.8M pre-seed funding with decentralized finance approach to payments, built around blockchain and crypto
- Singapore: Monetary Authority publishes guidelines for digital currency landscape, including a blueprint for tech infrastructure required to facilitate digital money transactions
“The blueprint also involves protocols on purpose-bound money, as well as methods for translating wallet addresses – which are typically jumbled letters and numbers – to be more readable for verification.”
“Additionally, the regulator will begin developing a CBDC for wholesale interbank settlement in 2024. In the first pilot, MAS will use a ‘live’ wholesale CBDC to settle retail payments between commercial banks, while later tests will explore cross-border securities trading.”
- ICYMI: Thunes, Singapore B2B payments major serving Uber, Deliveroo and others, inks cross-border digital yuan cooperation deal with China Construction Bank
- An overview of the Taiwan Pavilion at Singapore FinTech Festival 2023, focusing on Taiwan’s fintech startups and innovations in finance
- Singapore’s Entobel opens fly larvae facility in Vietnam capable of producing 1000 tons of protein meal annually for use in a range of feed products, with sights on 10,000 tons in 5 years
MERICS: Chinese state-affiliated hacking for strategic goals
October 2023
Google, Temasek, Bain: e-Conomy SEA 2023 – Singapore (pdf download)
- Digital Media Asia 2023 Conference is set for October 19-20, running from Singapore with 2 tracks, the Digital Revenue Summit and the Technology Summit
- Singapore: Australia’s Seek employment platform launches JobStreet Express for employers to find ‘semi-skilled’ workers, building on success of the platform in Indonesia
- Singapore: A brief intro to 4 solutions presenting at the forthcoming TechInnovation 2023 event, spanning green hydrogen, energy management and more
- Monetary Authority of Singapore and Saudi Central Bank ink MOU around cooperation in fintech and innovation, alongside separate agreement to boost investment between the two states
- A quick look at the tech startup winners from Expand North Star Dubai’s 2023 Supernova Challenge, including overall winner from Singapore, Accredify, a blockchain-based verification firm
McKinsey: The economic potential of artificial intelligence
- “Singapore plans to boost the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) by aiming to deploy 60,000 EV charging points nationwide by 2030…”
- Singapore: AIOX Apex Angel Fund announces new venture fund focused on deep-tech and web3 innovations, partnering X-PITCH 2023 deep-tech startup competition
- Better Bite Ventures backs 3 food-tech startups in latest First Bite funding – Singapore’s Fattastic, Australia’s Pivot Eat, and South Korea’s Everything But
- Singapore’s YouTrip, a fintech offering multicurrency wallets for consumers and business accounts with corporate cards for SMEs, lands $50M with sights on SE Asia expansion
- Singapore: Qosmosys secures $100M seed funding, principally to focus on developing ZeusX lunar transportation vehicle for public and private sector use
- Singapore: Drive Lah p2p car-sharing service gains $2M funding from ComfortDelGro transport giant, with sights on growth of Australia-focused Drive Mate brand and connected-car tech
- Here’s a preview of what to expect from the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit, set for October 31st to November 2nd in Singapore
- Circular raises $7.6M, providing consumers in Australia and Singapore with premium tech device access via subscription plans
October 2023: Semiconductors, critical minerals, space tech & satellites
- Philippines: Singapore’s Account Labs launches UniPass Wallet allowing users to connect with Google Accounts for cross-border remittances and payments using stablecoins
- Kazakhstan’s Science Fund partners Singapore/China Quest Ventures to boost research commercialization and startup growth
- Philippines: Singapore-based UNO Digital Bank partners Collabera Digital to expand user base with development of mini-app for GCash, Filipino financial and lifestyle super-app
- Vietnam: Singapore’s Protos Labs secures $2.2M for Vietnam expansion, focusing on the country’s risk landscape and cyber insurance requirements
- An intro to 3 ASEAN startups presenting at Hong Kong Electronics Fair, working on IoT wearables, semiconductors and ‘nanomaterials’, and AI-backed 3D printing
IISS: 2023 Asia Pacific Regional Security – Key developments and trends
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