Singapore calls for more global partners, including Chinese firms, in push for AI

Barcelona

SINGAPORE will continue to work with all players, including Chinese firms, to roll out artificial intelligence (AI) technologies needed for a smart city, even while the United States continues to cut business ties with Chinese AI firms because of their countries' ongoing trade spat.

Minister-in-charge of Singapore's Smart Nation Initiative Vivian Balakrishnan said on Tuesday: "That's how we will operate: keep it open."

He was speaking to The Straits Times on the sidelines of the three-day Smart City Expo World Congress 2019 in Barcelona, where he pitched to a global audience Singapore's appeal as a hub for testing and rolling out AI solutions.

Saying that a black-box concept is a no-no, Dr Balakrishnan, who is also Minister for Foreign Affairs, added: "We will insist that all AI in Singapore conform to the highest ethical standards. The principles have to be comprehensible. Otherwise you will get a pushback. The outcomes of AI have to be socially and politically acceptable."

Global partners are key to Singapore's national AI strategy that was unveiled last Wednesday, he said; they bring in foreign investments, skills and knowledge to a small city-state that welcomes new resources.

Last month, the Trump administration added 28 Chinese organisations and companies, including six AI firms, to its "entity list", a blacklist of those banned from trading with the US.

They are China's biggest and most important AI start-ups and include facial-recognition technology firms SenseTime and Yitu, which rely heavily on American suppliers for components such as semiconductors.

While Singapore will not take sides, it is aware that it might have to deal with a situation in which systems developed by US companies may not work with those created by Chinese firms if the trade war leads to separate and incompatible technologies being developed.

A split tech world would have profound implications for the pace of progress, connectivity and even how business is transacted, said Dr Balakrishnan.

Without singling out Huawei, which the US has also banned over espionage concerns, he said: "It is a fallacy to believe that you will achieve security just by excluding any one party."

CIMB Private Banking economist Song Seng Wun agreed: "China firms are among the most advanced in using AI. If we are really serious about our Smart Nation push, then it is inevitable that we work and learn from the best."

But while the uncertainty may be a drag on progress, Singapore believes it has the necessary qualities to be a hub that fosters some AI developments. Dr Balakrishnan said: "Lots of people can come up with a narrative or branding. But Singapore's unique selling point has always been that we do what we say, and plans are properly formulated and implemented."

Singapore has begun trials of five key national AI projects to enhance border security, urban logistics, healthcare, education and estate management. A total of S$900 million has been allocated to research and development in fields like AI, robotics and supercomputers through a five-year fund called the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2020 Plan managed by the National Research Foundation.

The republic's reputation for efficiency has attracted several firms to set up AI centres here; these include Chinese tech giants Alibaba, Huawei, Baidu and Tencent.

Alibaba's AI centre, launched last year jointly with Nanyang Technological University, now has more than 50 researchers from both organisations working in areas such as the diagnosis and prevention of diseases like arthritis and tuberculosis.

Huawei's AI lab, which aims to provide a testbed for AI and 5G applications including autonomous vehicle navigation, will be officially opened on Friday.

While the US and China continue to sort out their disagreements, the rest of the world can work on establishing multilateral norms, such as agreeing to use AI ethically and responsibly, Dr Balakrishnan added.

Experts said AI use will be responsible and socially accepted if machines do not take over the diagnosis and prescription of treatment for patients, which should always involve a human doctor. Responsible AI use also ensures that the data sets used to train systems, say, to sift out suitable candidates for a job do not discriminate against candidates of a particular gender or race, for example.

Should Singapore be concerned that China's style of AI use might not agree with the ethical framework Singapore has put out?

Experts say yes.

Maybank Kim Eng economist Chua Hak Bin said the local authorities should ensure that China AI firms modify their programmes to accommodate the needs of individual countries or clients. "Even so, we should not exclude or discriminate outright against Chinese AI firms because of the fear of their technology," he said.

Alex Capri, a visiting senior fellow at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School's department of analytics and operations, warned of risks involving intellectual property theft and data-privacy violations when dealing with China firms.

"But firms still gain more from collaboration and open trade than by building walls. The China market and its tech firms offer several key opportunities: access to huge amounts of data and massive scale," he added, noting that the use of open-source and sandbox technologies will enable collaboration without compromising data privacy and protection.