On June 5, Singapore’s Ministry for Communications and Information launched the country’s Digital Connectivity Blueprint (DCB). The Blueprint, developed in consultation with an Advisory Panel on Digital Infrastructure and other industry partners, sets the direction for the next era of Singapore’s digital connectivity. It relies on integrated master planning in three key categories of digital infrastructure – hard connectivity and compute infrastructure, soft infrastructure such as digital utilities, and the nexus between physical and digital infrastructure such as sensors, middleware, and autonomous robots. The framework defines both strategic priorities and ambitions in emerging areas to ensure the country’s digital infrastructure is “future ready.”
Strategic objectives outlined in the Blueprint include building capacity to double submarine cable landings, developing seamless end-to-end 10 Gbps domestic connectivity, and driving adoption of the Singapore Digital Utility (DU) Stack, to expand the benefits of seamless digital transactions. Singapore also hopes to pioneer a roadmap for the growth of new Green Data Centres (DCs). These DCs embed sustainability as a paramount design factor in Singapore’s digital infrastructure and represent one of the world’s first standards for optimizing energy efficiency for DCs in tropical climate countries. The DCB also outlines intentions to advance the vision of achieving a Quantum-safe Singapore within the next 10 years. To do so, the country has launched Southeast Asia’s first quantum-safe network infrastructure, the National Quantum-Safe Network Plus (NQSN+), to help businesses tap into quantum-safe technologies. IMDA has already received proposals from Singtel, and from a joint partnership between SPTel and SpeQtral, as potential partners for network operation.
With the launch of the Digital Connectivity Blueprint, Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has also partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch a Joint Innovation Centre (JIC), a first –in Southeast Asia, and has also appointed 18 high potential tech professionals as SG Digital Leaders under the SG Digital Leadership Accelerator. The initiatives are part of Singapore’s larger interest in accelerating industry innovation and developing the next generation of leaders for the digital transition.
