Small states, big choices: Singapore’s approach to sovereignty in the age of AI
The nation preserves agency by adopting a spectrum of strategic postures across different layers of the AI stack
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AT THE AI Impact Summit from Feb 16 to 20 in New Delhi, a central question emerged for governments: How can states harness artificial intelligence (AI) at scale while remaining open, competitive, and sovereign in a deeply interconnected world?
Too often, however, AI sovereignty is framed as a race for self-reliance – who owns the most data, builds the largest models, or controls the most compute. For small, open economies like Singapore, this framing isn’t just unrealistic, it risks obscuring what sovereignty actually requires.
AI sovereignty is best understood as a set of strategic postures, not a quest for technological self-sufficiency.
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