Singtel’s Digital InfraCo, Nvidia launch applied AI centre to power Singapore’s innovation capabilities

[SINGAPORE] Digital InfraCo, Singtel’s infrastructure unit, launched a centre of excellence (CoE) for applied artificial intelligence (AI) with Nvidia on Tuesday (Feb 24), under its drive to build a trusted and sovereign AI ecosystem for Singapore.

The centre in the Punggol Digital District, which will begin operations in about three months, aims to help larger enterprises deploy large-scale AI solutions, whether they are at the pilot stage or production roll-out stage – and to do so more quickly and at lower cost.

Acting as a “micro AI grid”, the centre will bring together AI infrastructure, frontier models, technology expertise and solution providers.

Within this ecosystem, larger enterprises can experiment with AI technologies, such as embodied AI robotics and autonomous systems, in a real operational environment.

The initiative was announced at the Singtel FutureNow Innovation Centre in Tanjong Pagar by Senior Minister of State (Digital Development and Information) Tan Kiat How, and comes at a time organisations are facing challenges in operationalising AI at scale.

“These data centres are the foundation to our digital economy. They house the computing capacity that supports Singapore’s AI ambitions, but they are also intensive users of resources, especially power and water,” he said. “Environments like the Punggol Digital District can serve as a test base for companies to test and refine their AI applications at scale.”

At the centre, larger enterprises will be able to tap Digital InfraCo’s Nxera, Singtel’s AI data centre platform, which supports high-density, compute-intensive AI projects, and Singtel’s sovereign AI cloud provider Re:AI, which provides graphic processing unit (GPU) infrastructure.

Nvidia will supply GPUs, GPU cooling solutions for data centres, and technical expertise to facilitate large-scale application of AI solutions.

Companies will also have access to advanced AI tools, including Edge AI applications, which can be used in autonomous systems and robotics.

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These will be enabled by the ecosystem’s low-latency networks, where responses by computing systems are produced with minimal delay. 

Bill Chang, Singtel Digital InfraCo’s CEO, noted that enterprises and organisations from the public and private sector – research agencies and healthcare companies among them – have shown “strong demand and interest”.

“Our strategy goes beyond building state-of-the-art AI infrastructure,” he said. 

He added that the CoE in Punggol aims to bring the ecosystem together to help enterprises learn, experiment and develop their AI capabilities.

The centre and its offerings aim to bridge the trial-to-deployment gap for larger enterprise AI applications.

The Singtel-Nvidia partnership was inked in a memorandum of understanding to formalise the two sides’ commitment to advancing AI innovation and strengthening collaboration in the region.

Singtel was represented by the chief technology officer of Digital InfraCo Manoj Prasanna Kumar, and Nvidia, by its solutions, architecture and engineering senior vice-president, Marc Hamilton.

Minister Tan said: “What is clear is that our digital infrastructure must evolve and refresh to keep pace with this wave of AI innovation.

“Singapore’s advantage does not lie in building the largest frontier models. It lies in deploying AI effectively and responsibly. We are focused on how AI can be harnessed to solve real-world problems and create value for our businesses and our people.”