Singapore, 21 December 2025 — Singapore’s technology narrative going into 2026 is less about flashy launches and more about the infrastructure that makes innovation usable at scale: compute capacity, cyber resilience, and trust frameworks for AI and data. The latest official reporting also shows something many business owners can feel on the ground “tech” in Singapore is no longer confined to the tech sector. Digitalization is now a measurable slice of the wider economy, driven heavily by non-tech industries adopting digital tools and AI.
Digitalization is now an “economy-wide” growth engine
In IMDA’s Singapore Digital Economy (SGDE) Report 2025, value added from digitalization accounted for 12.6% of GDP in 2024, up from 12.0% in 2023, a sign that digital activity is becoming more embedded across sectors.
Separate coverage referencing the same SGDE reporting notes Singapore’s digital economy reached S$128.1 billion in 2024 (about 18.6% of GDP), and that more than two-thirds of digital growth came from non-Information & Communications sectors, industries like finance, manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and professional services where digital tools increasingly shape productivity.
AI is scaling, but Singapore is leaning hard into “trusted AI”
AI remains a bright spot across Southeast Asia, even as private funding stays below the 2021 peak. The latest regional digital economy research (Google, Temasek, Bain) highlights that AI startups attracted over US$2.3B in the year to June 2025 and Singapore hosts 495 of 680 AI startups tracked in the region, making it the most concentrated AI hub by count.
At the same time, Singapore’s stance has been consistent: adoption should move with guardrails. IMDA has rolled out initiatives to support trusted deployment of AI and data, including a Global AI Assurance Sandbox, a guide to help organizations adopt privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), and a Singapore Standard for Data Protection.
On the testing and assurance side, the AI Verify framework positions itself as a way for organizations to assess AI systems against recognized governance principles, while IMDA also highlighted work such as a global assurance pilot/sandbox effort tied to technical testing of generative AI applications.
Compute becomes strategy: Singapore reopens the door for data centre growth under green constraints
AI demand is pushing a new wave of infrastructure buildout across the region. Singapore, constrained by land and power, is taking a managed approach, but it is still expanding.
On 1 Dec 2025, EDB and IMDA launched a second Data Centre Call for Application (DC-CFA2), making at least 200MW of data centre capacity available, with the potential for more through “innovative green energy pathways.” The move is framed explicitly as enabling sustainable growth of data centers, treating them as national digital infrastructure rather than pure real estate plays.
This aligns with IMDA’s broader Green Data Centre Roadmap, which focuses on continuing data centre growth while tightening sustainability expectations.
Cybersecurity is now board-level, not just IT-level
Singapore’s cybersecurity environment is becoming more complex as digitalization deepens. CSA’s Singapore Cyber Landscape 2024/2025 reviews the cyber situation in 2024 and the country’s decade-long effort to build a safer cyberspace amid rapid digitalization.
And the risks are not abstract. In July 2025, Singapore publicly stated it was dealing with cyberattacks targeting its critical infrastructure, linked by experts to an espionage group (UNC3886). The government described the threat as serious and connected to national security risks.
As Singapore heads into 2026, the direction of travel is clear: technology is becoming less of a standalone sector and more of the operating system for how businesses compete, through smarter use of data and AI, stronger digital trust, and infrastructure that can scale responsibly. The next wave of winners will likely be the companies that treat security, governance, and sustainability as product features (not afterthoughts), and that can turn innovation into measurable outcomes for customers. In that sense, Singapore’s tech story isn’t about chasing hype, it’s about building capabilities that hold up in the real world and stay resilient as the stakes rise.