Singapore's Singtel has launched RE:AI, its new Artificial Intelligence Cloud Service (AI Cloud) offering, aimed at democratising AI to make it widely available to organisations. The operator said the service gives enterprises and public sector customers affordable access to AI technologies that can transform their operations without needing to invest or maintain in-house infrastructure and supporting resources.
Also Read: SK Telecom Launches AI Cloud Manager to Maximise GPU Usage
AI Platform and Infrastructure
The turnkey AI development and deployment platform will combine state-of-the-art AI compute infrastructure like, graphics processing units (GPUs) and storage, AI workspaces and tools, with diverse networks such as, 5G, fixed or quantum safe networks. These will be delivered through Singtel’s patented orchestration platform, Paragon, the company said on Thursday.
The offering will enable customers to deploy, manage and scale their AI applications without having to worry about the overheads of complex infrastructure, thereby allowing them to innovate and take their productivity to next level, Singtel said.
Also Read: Singtel Launches Southeast Asia’s First Nationwide Quantum-Safe Network
Five Key Partnerships to Drive AI Democratisation
Singtel says it aims to democratise AI by working with strategic partners in five ways – through the creation of a research and development AI Cloud platform, facilitation of AI adoption for the advanced manufacturing sector, ecosystem development to accelerate the deployment of AI solutions, curation of tech incubation and acceleration programme for promising tech companies and AI skills training to empowering its workforce. Five Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) were signed with these partners in these areas, at the launch of RE:AI, the company said.
Also Read: NVIDIA AI Aerial: Merging Wireless Networks and Generative AI on a Unified Platform
Mr Bill Chang, CEO of Singtel's Digital InfraCo, said, "Many enterprises and public sector customers have shown keen interest to bring AI into their operations. However, the high costs and long lead times for GPUs, the need for special environments to host them due to their intense energy utilisation, the complexity of AI technology and the lack of talent are key friction points in their respective journeys."
"With the launch of RE:AI, we’re significantly reducing entry barriers, making AI easily accessible to enterprises, government agencies, research communities and academia – the more people have access to AI, the more innovation is bound to emerge, which in turn fuels growth. RE:AI will foster a dynamic ecosystem of partners with distinctive capabilities and platforms to accelerate AI adoption to drive innovation and growth in Singapore and the region, sustainably. As we build on this ecosystem, we will attract global AI tech companies here to expand into the region with our market access. This is key to positioning Singapore as a regional AI."
RE:AI will provide AI capabilities and tools through cloud-based platforms powered by Paragon. Enterprises can access ready-made solutions to develop customised AI environments and workspaces for any industry within minutes with a few clicks. Enterprises can deploy AI at scale and speed, with models, tools and applications orchestrated and delivered over 5G, fixed or even quantum-safe networks for a multitude of use cases, the operator explained.
Also Read: SoftBank and Ericsson Partner to Explore AI-Integrated RAN Solutions
AI Partnerships and Initiatives
"The launch of RE:AI and partnerships are part of Singtel's strategy to accelerate digital transformation for enterprises, starting with digital infrastructure and scalable AI solutions. One of the early initiatives includes the development of a new generation of sustainable, hyper-connected AI-ready data centres through its Nxera data centre arm," Singtel said.
Singtel RE:AI will partner with the National Supercomputing Centre Singapore, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF), the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), AlphaSense, H2O.AI, Hippocratic.AI, Hive AI, Digital Industry Singapore, AI Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, and the National University of Singapore on various AI initiatives.
These initiatives include R&D, AI adoption in the advanced manufacturing sector, establishing an ecosystem to accelerate the deployment of AI solutions and services, an incubation and acceleration program for promising AI tech companies, the AI Acceleration Academy for workforce development and upskilling within Singtel, and advancing sustainability goals.
