General Badia,

Director General Shearer,

Distinguished guests, 

Good morning. Let me thank the Aspen Strategy Group and Amazon Web Services for convening this roundtable, on this highly relevant topic.

Military AI and the Modern Battlefield  

I will confine my remarks to what Singapore – MINDEF/SAF – has done to prepare for the advent of AI systems. Our assumption of AI in military operations was not if, but how quickly, and how large a role.

Singapore’s Approach 

To deal with this, we restructured our defence organisation and military. In 2022, we created a new fourth service of our Armed Forces, now on par with the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. One of the Digital and Intelligence Service’s (DIS’) main priorities is to optimise the application of new technologies, particularly AI, across the SAF’s spectrum of operations. To this end, MINDEF/SAF has increased linkages with our closest partners on military AI.  

With the US, last year we signed the Memorandum of Understanding for Defence Innovation Cooperation and a Statement of Intent regarding Data, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Cooperation. 

With France, we established a Joint Research Laboratory in 2023. This Joint Lab is led by the National University of Singapore and the French National Centre for Scientific Research, and will focus on developing AI capabilities for impactful defence applications.

Since 2021, Singapore has established a set of guiding principles for responsible, robust, reliable and safe AI for the defence sector. Singapore supports initiatives - such as the US-led AI Partnership for Defence, and the Responsible AI in the Military Domain (REAIM) process, led by the Netherlands and the Republic of Korea. Singapore has also endorsed the US-initiated Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy.  

But the jury is still out, if a global consensus on civilian applications, let alone military, can be agreed upon.