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Singapore, France partner to build cyber defense lab

Singapore, France partner to build cyber defense lab

Singapore and France have announced plans to establish a cooperative research laboratory to develop artificial intelligence capabilities for cyber defense.

The agreement between Singapore’s Ministry of Defence and France’s Ministry of the Armed Forces will see both countries collaborate in potential research areas such as artificial intelligence for geospatial analysis, natural language processing to extract information for analysis, and computer vision for monitoring image and video feeds to identify potential threats across a range of environmental conditions.

Mindef’s research facility is the first lab in Singapore that it has created in collaboration with another countries.

According to Mindef, the centre would adopt a “global and multidisciplinary approach” to developing AI capabilities for “impactful” defence applications.

The French National Centre for Scientific Research and Temasek Laboratories at the National University of Singapore will lead the lab, which will draw on research skills from the larger community in each country. Institutes of higher learning and research institutions will be among these knowledge sources.

Chan Heng Kee, Mindef’s permanent secretary of defence, stated that his ministry was broadening its collaborations in order to tap new sources of innovation for defence applications. “Digital and dual-use technologies like AI are rapidly evolving today,” added Chan.
“By bringing together leading researchers in Singapore and France, we can accelerate our research to tackle shared security challenges.”

The two countries signed a deal in March 2022 to engage in numerous digital and green economy fields such as smart transportation, financial services, and medical technologies.

Singapore amended two statutes last August, paving the door for the establishment of a new digital intelligence unit as part of the country’s armed forces.

The administration justified the action by citing an increase in “cyber intrusions” that threatened crucial systems. The new digital and intelligence service unit is Singapore’s fourth service and is responsible for fighting cyber-attacks.

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