MDDI 演讲稿 · 2023-07-24
杨莉明部长在「AI 先锋」计划启动仪式上的演讲
Speech by Minister Josephine Teo at the Launch of the "AI Trailblazers" Initiative
要点
- • 「AI Trailblazers」由 Google + MCI + SNDGO + DISG 合作启动——20 支公私团队首批参与。
- • 新加坡 AI R&D 基础：4,000+ 名 AI 研究者；之前 R&D 已经做出来——但「翻译为跨行业有意义用例」还有距离。
- • Trailblazers 与 AGCC（AI Government Cloud Cluster）合作——给政府机构与新加坡私企各一个「Innovation Sandbox」——目标：100 天内识别并回应 100 个生成式 AI 用例（千、万级是后续目标）。
- • 案例：人力部团队希望用 AI 为求职者提供定向职业辅导（不只是匹配，还要给「差距如何缩小」的干预建议）；GovTech「Build for Good」黑客松的获奖队伍——帮学校辅导员更高效写完整的个案记录、把时间还给学生福祉。
完整译文（中文）
MDDI 英文原文译文 · 翻译日期：2026-05-03
本文已从早期版本的网站迁移过来——格式可能有不一致之处。
Google Cloud 亚太区副总裁 Karan Bajwa 先生、各位同仁与朋友——早安。
我很高兴出席「Trailblazers」倡议的启动。这是 Google、新加坡通讯及新闻部（MCI）、智慧国与数码政府办公室（SNDGO）、新加坡数码产业局（DISG）之间——一次及时而激动人心的伙伴关系。感谢各位与我们一起推进这件事。
驾驭 AI 的变革潜能
「Trailblazers」（开拓者）这个名字很贴切——不只是对今天工作坊里参与的 20 支公私部门团队——也对「希望进入新疆域、为新加坡 AI 开辟新路径」的所有人。
AI 本身不算很新的技术。它已经存在几十年。在这里设展位的几家公司——其中一些在新加坡做 AI 已远超 10 年。
过去 20 来年——机器学习的创新已经在塑造我们的日常体验——从找最快与朋友碰面的路、到挑下一部 Netflix、Disney+、YouTube 的剧。AI 在背后工作——影响我们的选择——希望服务我们更好。
这种创新不只在私营部门——在公共部门——我们也找到借力机器学习改善生活的方式。比如——新加坡警察部队（SPF）与银行合作——部署 AI 监测交易、检测欺诈。新加坡国立大学医院等公共健康机构——使用 AI 提前 2 周预测床位可用性——以优化容量、缩短等待时间。我们这些偶尔得把家人送医的人——会理解这有多有用。
技术继续以光速发展——还伴随有趣的转折。不久前——元宇宙（Metaverse）还正当红——人人都在谈。最近——大语言模型与图像扩散模型的进展——把聚光灯打到生成式 AI 上。这些模型既能作为「点状方案」用于提升生产力——也能深嵌入业务模型与技术栈中——为消费者与公民交付新种类的价值。以生成式 AI 为新的「滩头堡」——我相信我们会在客户运营、市场与销售、软件工程，以及研发的许多应用上——看到非常激动人心的进展。这会提升研究质量——因为我们能更好地把目标对准「能产出结果」的路径。
结果——AI 的变革潜能——对更多人来说——似乎触手可及。可能性扩大——「为公共利益借力 AI」的「速度与规模」也相应放大。
新加坡对「AI 驱动价值创造」的雄心
这些机会——可以通过「在新加坡确保稳健的 AI 创新支撑环境」来实现。自 2019 年启动《国家 AI 战略》以来——我们在培育本地 R&D 生态上已经取得重要进展。
新加坡今天有 4,000 多位发表 AI 论文的研究者——他们的总产出相当可观。其中一些（比如今天在场的 A*STAR 首席 AI 科学家 Ong Yew Soon 教授）位列其领域顶尖；而 Google 校友 Yi Tay 等新生代——正在开发前沿产品。
我们仍有距离要走的——是把这种研究转化为「跨行业广泛而有意义的用例」。
这种努力很重要——因为它推动我们「把疙瘩抚平」。这些疙瘩可能是数据问题——也可能是安全问题。负责任地落地 AI——要求我们「不留这些问题悬而未决」——而是开发出令人满意的回应。这才能让我们解锁 AI 在新加坡的「全部潜能」。
今年早些时候——我分享了 AI 能用来回应当代重大挑战的若干领域。
在教育、物流、金融等行业的国家级 AI 项目之外——AI 也能帮新加坡——通过「预防性照护与精准医疗」回应老龄人口的医疗需求——或通过「能效与负载优化」帮我们达成净零承诺。
我们应当增强 AI 生态——使它更有能力为这些重大挑战生成方案。这意味着——在 R&D 基础上——把关键能力以更大规模在这里扎根。
在所需的众多努力中——我们必须以「吸引世界最好人才在新加坡发展想法、构建产品」为目标——并把创新社群聚拢在他们周围。
我们也必须确保——支持 AI 快速开发与测试的容量——让算力对开发者可获得——并培育「AI 就绪」的企业去试用与采用新方案。
这些只是我们追求雄心的几项前置条件——培育有活力且具竞争力的 AI 格局——并最终——提升新加坡人的生活与生计。
与私营部门的伙伴关系与 Trailblazers 倡议
政府内部的紧密协调——会帮助确保所有要素到位。但同样重要的是这种伙伴关系——它让我们能借力私营部门的活力与能力。
今年早些时候——政府与 Google Cloud 宣布了一项战略合作——「AI Government Cloud Cluster」（AGCC）。Trailblazers 倡议——在这一合作的基础上——帮助公私部门的组织——识别真实世界挑战、构建 AI 方案原型、并把方案推到生产环境。
参与的公共部门机构——能在 AGCC 中获得专属的「Innovation Sandbox」（创新沙盒）——借力 Google 的生成式 AI 工具——构建与测试方案。新加坡的私企——也将受益于由「新加坡数码产业局」（DISG）管理的类似沙盒——在云端环境中开发产品。
总体而言——这些「Innovation Sandbox」——将在未来 100 天内——在政府与产业范围内——识别并回应 100 个生成式 AI 用例。当然——我们的雄心不止于「百」——必须是「千」——并且在不远的将来——是「万」。但「千里之行始于足下」。我相信这一倡议——正是这「足下」。
今天参与的团队中——人力部（MOM）的一支——希望用 AI 给员工提供定向职业辅导（包括岗位与培训推荐）——让他们能更有信心地穿行求职市场。这是我们面对的议题之一——我们想做更好的「求职者—岗位匹配」。但我们也知道——这不只是「让他们彼此联系」的问题——更是「深入理解个人与岗位要求」。两者之间还有一个重要的「缝隙」——即便匹配不是 100%，仅 60%，你能鼓励个人采取什么干预去缩小差距？这件事很难做。我们有职业辅导员——但他们的工作量已极大。借助这一工具——我相信他们能给客户的建议层级——能戏剧性地改变。
另一个有意思的用例——来自 GovTech「开放政府产品」（Open Government Products）团队最近举办的「Build for Good」黑客松的获奖队伍——它的目标是——帮学校辅导员更高效地产出全面的个案记录——把时间释放出来聚焦学生的福祉。把最常规的、机械的任务拿走——把记录工作做得更好——以便更好地帮每位学生——也是一种回应「不平等议题」的方式。
对许多员工与学生而言——这些用例——在合适的资源与发展机会支持下——可能带来「全部差别」。
我希望各位与我一起鼓励——已站出来的 Trailblazer 团队——在 Google 支持下——构建这些有意义的产品。我也呼吁更多组织——充分利用这一伙伴关系——在各自领域开发「能改变规则」的方案。
谢谢——祝大家前路富有成果。
演讲 PDF 版本
英文原文
MDDI 官网原始记录 · 抓取日期：2026-05-02
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Mr Karan Bajwa, Vice President Asia Pacific, Google Cloud, Colleagues and friends, Good morning.
I’m thrilled to be here for the launch of the Trailblazers initiative. This is a timely and exciting partnership between Google, the Ministry for Communications and Information (MCI), the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO), and Digital Industry Singapore (DISG). Thank you for working with us on it.
Harnessing the Transformative Potential of AI
The name ‘Trailblazers’ is an apt one. Not only for the 20 teams from the public and private sectors who are participating in today’s workshop, but for all of us in Singapore who are eager to enter new territories and chart new paths in AI.
AI itself is not such a new technology. It has been around for several decades. For some of the companies that have set up their exhibits here, they have been doing AI in Singapore for well over a decade.
In the last 20 years or so, innovations in machine learning have come to shape our daily experiences: from finding the quickest way to meet our friends, to picking your next show on Netflix, Disney+ or YouTube. AI is working in the background, influencing our choices, with the hope of serving us better.
Such innovations are not confined to the private sector; in the public sector, we have also found ways to harness machine learning to improve lives. For instance, the Singapore Police Force works with banks to deploy AI in monitoring transactions and detecting fraud. Public health institutions like the National University Hospital use AI to predict the availability of hospital beds up to two weeks in advance, to optimise capacity and reduce waiting times. You and I, who on occasions have had to rush family members to the hospitals, will appreciate how useful this is.
Technology continues to develop at light-speed, with interesting twists and turns. Not so long ago, the Metaverse was all the rage. People could not stop talking about it. More recently, advances in large language models and image diffusion-based models have turned the spotlight on generative AI. These models can not only be deployed as point solutions to raise productivity, but also embedded deep within our business models and tech stacks, delivering new kinds of value for consumers and citizens. With generative AI as a new beachhead, I think we will see very exciting developments in customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering, as well as many applications in research and development. This will raise the quality of research because we will be better able to target the pathways that could produce results.
As a result, the transformative potential of AI appears to be much more within reach and for many more people. With the expanding possibilities, the scope to harness AI for public good outcomes – at speed and scale – have multiplied accordingly.
Singapore’s ambitions for AI-driven value creation
These opportunities can be realised through ensuring a robust environment to support AI innovation in Singapore. Since launching our National AI Strategy in 2019, we have made important strides in nurturing our research and development (R&D) ecosystem here.
Singapore has more than 4,000 researchers publishing on AI today, and their combined research output is more than respectable. Some, like Professor Ong Yew Soon – the Chief AI Scientist at A*STAR, who is here with us today – are recognised at the top of their fields, while up-and-coming names such as Google alumnus Yi Tay are developing cutting-edge products.
Where we still have some distance to go, is in translating this research into widespread and meaningful use-cases across different industries.
Such efforts are important because they push us to iron out kinks. These kinks could be data issues, but they could also be issues to do with security. Responsible implementation of AI needs us to be ensure that you do not leave these questions unanswered, but to develop satisfactory answers. This will allow us to unlock the fullest potential of AI for Singapore.
Earlier this year, I shared some areas where AI can be deployed to address the major challenges of our time.
Beyond our existing national AI programmes in sectors like education, logistics, or finance; AI can help Singapore tackle the healthcare needs of our ageing population through preventive care and precision medicine, or meeting our net-zero commitments through energy efficiency and load optimisation.
We should enhance our AI ecosystem to be more capable of generating solutions to these major challenges. This means building on our foundations in R&D, to anchor key capabilities here on a larger scale.
Among the many efforts needed, we must aim to attract the world’s best talents to develop their ideas and build products in Singapore, and gather communities of innovation around them.
We must also ensure we have the capacity to support the rapid development and testing of AI, by making compute accessible to developers, and fostering AI-ready businesses to trial and adopt new solutions.
These are just some of the prerequisites that will allow us to pursue our ambitions: to foster a thriving and competitive AI landscape, and ultimately, to uplift the lives and livelihoods of Singaporeans.
Partnership with private sector and Trailblazers initiative
Close coordination across the Government will help to ensure all the ingredients are in place. But equally important are partnerships like these, which allow us to tap on the dynamism and capabilities of the private sector.
Earlier this year, the Government announced a strategic collaboration with Google Cloud with the AI Government Cloud Cluster (AGCC). The Trailblazers initiative builds on this collaboration, by helping organisations – from both the private and public sector – identify real-world challenges, build AI solution prototypes, and bring those solutions to production.
Participating public sector agencies will be able to access a dedicated Innovation Sandbox, within the AGCC, where they can leverage Google’s generative AI tools to build and test their solutions. Singapore-based private sector companies will also benefit from a similar Sandbox, administered by Digital Industry Singapore, to develop products within a cloud-based environment.
All in all, the Innovation Sandboxes will identify and address 100 generative AI use-cases across government and industry within the next 100 days. Of course, our ambitions don’t stop in the hundreds, our ambitions have to be in the thousands, and in the not-so-distant future – the tens of thousands. But the journey of a thousand miles still has to begin with the first step. I think that’s exactly what this initiative is.
One of the teams participating today, from the Ministry of Manpower, hopes to use AI to provide workers with targeted career guidance, including job and training recommendations, which will allow them to navigate the job market much more confidently. This is one of the issues that we face. We want to do a better job of matching jobseekers to jobs. But we also know that it is not just a matter of putting them in touch with each other. It is about understanding the individuals and job requirements deeply. There is also an important gap in between, which is that even if the matches are not a 100 percent, even if it is mere 60 percent, what kinds of interventions can you encourage the individual to take to close the gap? And this is very difficult to do so. We have career coaches, but they have an immense workload to deal with. With this tool, I think that could dramatically change the level of advice they provide to their clients.
Another fascinating use-case, which was one of the winning teams in the ‘Build for Good’ hackathon organised recently by the Open Government Products team at GovTech, aims to help school counsellors produce comprehensive case notes more efficiently, freeing up time to focus on the wellness of their students. By taking away the most mundane and routine tasks, and doing a better job of documentation so that they can help each student, is also a way in which the issue of inequality can be addressed.
For so many workers and students out there, these use-cases – given the right resources and opportunities for development – could make all the difference.
I hope you will join me in encouraging the Trailblazer teams which have stepped forward to build such meaningful products with Google’s support. I also urge more organisations to make the most of this partnership, to develop game-changing solutions in your respective domains.
Thank you, and I wish all of you a fruitful journey ahead.
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