From traditional telco to tech: Singtel steps up sovereign AI push with latest tie-up
The group is betting on infrastructure, partnerships and a trained workforce to cement its position
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[SINGAPORE] Singtel is accelerating its pivot from a traditional telco to a technology business, placing artificial intelligence at the core of its strategy as it builds sovereign data capabilities and reskills its workforce.
“We are transforming Singtel from just a pure-play telecommunication company into an AI technology company,” said Bill Chang, the chief executive officer of Singtel Digital InfraCo.
“With the infrastructure and software Singtel is bringing in, the company is moving into an ecosystem play.”
To this end, Singtel is moving beyond selling raw infrastructure – such as graphics processing units (GPUs), data centres and networks – to assembling a network of partners, tools and customers.
As part of this, and as it seeks to align itself with Singapore’s growing emphasis on sovereign AI, Singtel – through its sovereign AI cloud business RE:AI – has partnered French firm Mistral AI to speed up the city-state’s development and adoption of AI in key industries.
Chang noted that Mistral was chosen to complement RE:AI’s sovereign AI cloud, which is designed to keep sensitive data locally within Singtel’s infrastructure.
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He was speaking to The Business Times on the sidelines of the Milipol TechX 2026 event at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre on Monday (Apr 27), where he signed the partnership agreement with Arthur Mensch, CEO and co-founder of Mistral AI.
Formed in 2023, the Digital InfraCo business unit manages and grows Singtel’s digital infrastructure portfolio. Assets include its regional sustainable data centre arm Nxera, RE:AI, Paragon AI/5G platform, subsea cables and satellites.
Building an AI ecosystem
Singtel’s strategy centres on addressing three key constraints in its AI push: energy, talent and data governance.
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On energy efficiency, Nxera in February announced the opening of DC Tuas, its largest, most energy-efficient data centre in the region.
Singapore in December 2025 launched a second data centre call for application, requiring projects to have “best-in-class facility energy efficiency”.
To align with this, Singtel aims to further improve its energy efficiency, though Chang acknowledged that this would demand a lot of innovation and cost.
The group is also exploring expansion beyond South-east Asia, including into Japan and other markets, to scale its data centre footprint.
On talent, Singtel is retraining staff across functions – from software development to infrastructure and end-user roles – to build AI capabilities.
“We are massively retooling and reskilling all of our employees, especially in Singapore, through training on AI awareness, deep skills and expertise,” said Chang.
Externally, Singtel’s venture capital arm, Innov8, launched a new US$250 million AI Growth Fund to invest in high-growth AI startups globally and accelerate applied AI adoption across the group.
Teams in countries such as the US and China are scouting promising companies, which may be brought into Asia to collaborate with Singtel on its AI push.
As for data governance – an area critical for sovereign AI – Singtel in February launched the Singtel-Nvidia Centre of Excellence for Applied AI in Singapore’s Punggol Digital District to accelerate enterprise adoption of sovereign AI, edge computing and robotics.
The latest tie-up between RE:AI and Mistral AI deepens this push.
Unlike many models that require cloud deployment from overseas servers, Mistral allows its models to be deployed on-premise within a country’s borders, making it suitable for customers who need to store data locally.
“We are looking to bring AI to the data and not data to AI in other countries, especially for sovereign customers’ needs with data governance that is required to be here,” Chang explained.
Growing outwards
Moving forward, Singtel sees partnerships as key to expanding its AI ecosystem and unlocking new use cases.
“For infrastructure, we are expanding our data centres across the regions and putting our GPUs into these data centres,” said Chang. Singtel is also “building vertically” through partnerships such as Mistral and Nvidia, he added.
While execution risks still remain, including energy constraints and talent gaps, the group is positioning itself to capture rising demand for AI.
“It is an exciting time and lots to be done in the AI space,” said Chang. “It is going to be a huge journey ahead of us.”
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