DBT Bureau
Pune, 14 June 2025
Google Cloud and Digital Industry Singapore (DISG) announced the launch of “AI Cloud Takeoff” (AI CTO), a full-fledged national program to establish AI Centers of Excellence (AI CoEs) within 300 digitally-mature, Singapore-based companies over the next 12 months. This will empower them to create AI-driven intellectual property, products, and services that boost their competitiveness and unlock new revenue opportunities.
AI CTO is the pioneering program under the Singapore Government’s “Enterprise Compute Initiative,” which was first announced during its Budget 2025 statement. Notably, the success of Google Cloud and DISG’s initial AI CTO pilot with 30 companies in November 2024 validated the program framework while providing valuable insights that informed the development of the broader Enterprise Compute Initiative.
Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and the Ministry of Culture, Community, and Youth (MCCY) Ms. Low Yen Ling was the Guest-of-Honor and delivered officiating remarks at the program launch event.
Highlighting the significance of the AI CTO, Mr. Philbert Gomez, Senior Vice President; Head and Executive Director, Digital Industry Singapore, said: “The Enterprise Compute Initiative is a pioneering national program designed to bring together cloud service providers and IT consulting partners to accelerate AI-driven transformation for businesses. Our successful pilot with Google Cloud laid a strong foundation, enabling Singapore-based companies like Embed, Seaco, and YCH Group to harness tailored AI solutions that enhance operational efficiency and strengthen global competitiveness. Through the Enterprise Compute Initiative, we’re excited by the potential for hundreds of Singapore-based enterprises to be enabled by AI – driving innovation, productivity gains, and sustainable growth across industries.”
Using the proven framework designed by Google Cloud, AI CTO will help each company establish a dedicated in-house unit (i.e., an AI CoE) that will centralize AI-related expertise, resources, and governance; drive technology, process, and people transformation; and ensure AI innovation initiatives are aligned with business objectives, scalable, and implemented securely and responsibly.
Ms. Serene Sia, Country Director, Singapore and Malaysia, Google Cloud, said: “While businesses were initially hesitant to embrace AI, often associating it with consumer-grade tools, Google Cloud programs like AI Trailblazers successfully laid the groundwork by emphasizing enterprise AI’s distinct advantages. This led many to experiment with and adopt enterprise AI solutions. With companies now pursuing more advanced, purpose-built solutions to unlock greater value, they must address new challenges like building robust data-to-AI pipelines, fostering a learning culture, securing internal buy-in, prioritizing the right use cases, and integration with existing systems. With DISG, we’ve designed AI CTO to help these firms implement a practical roadmap for holistic transformation, empowering them to scale enterprise AI innovation with confidence and readiness.”
AI CTO: Providing a clear pathway to enterprise AI excellence at scale
To meet program milestones—which include developing and piloting at least one minimum viable product (MVP) that addresses a high-value AI, generative AI (gen AI), or agentic AI use case within a set budget and a six-month timeframe—AI CTO will provide each participating company with access to:
- A two-week AI capacity building bootcamp with Google Cloud experts to establish an AI CoE that can effectively coordinate AI innovation initiatives across departments and lines of business, identify use cases aligned with corporate strategy and core priorities, and prioritize the right use case(s) by evaluating their expected value generation, feasibility, and actionability;
- Technical consultancy services to facilitate the design of a structured blueprint that guides end-to-end AI solution development, from data exploration and experimentation, to model training, deployment, performance monitoring, and optimization based on clearly defined metrics;
- Google Cloud credits to subsidize their use of industry-leading serverless compute and data-to-AI platform services like BigQuery and Vertex AI for solution development, and Google Cloud Skills Boost for Organizations for employee upskilling and change management;
- Technical implementation services to build, test, and implement interoperable AI solutions (i.e., MVPs) that can be seamlessly integrated with existing workflows and systems, are grounded (i.e., only draw outputs from data sources the company chooses, trusts, and controls), and uphold stringent data privacy and AI security requirements.
Technical implementation services to build, test, and implement interoperable AI solutions (i.e., MVPs) that can be seamlessly integrated with existing workflows and systems, are grounded (i.e., only draw outputs from data sources the company chooses, trusts, and controls), and uphold stringent data privacy and AI security requirements.
Companies will work with their DISG-appointed, Google Cloud-certified technical consultancy and implementation partner of choice to establish their AI CoEs and receive financial incentives worth up to SG$500,000 from DISG and Google Cloud, disbursed in tranches as they meet various milestones. Google Cloud partners appointed by DISG for the program include Accenture, AsiaPac, CloudMile, Deloitte, Kyndryl, NTT Data, and Searce.
Applications are now open for the full-fledged AI CTO program. At its launch event, Embed, Seaco, and YCH Group demonstrated the AI solutions they have developed through the initial AI CTO pilot.
