Singapore is launching a hands-on artificial intelligence (AI) bootcamp aimed at chief executives and senior business leaders to close a persistent gap between AI ambition and real-world deployment.
Called the Digital Leaders Accelerator Bootcamp (DLAB), the programme will be run by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and EY-Parthenon.
It is designed to help companies identify high-impact business problems, design AI solutions, run small-scale deployments and build implementation roadmaps with measurable outcomes. Projects are intended to deliver results within three months.
EY-Parthenon will run the inaugural DLAB session from next Thursday (March 26), followed by BCG in the second quarter. IMDA says it is targeting roughly 200 enterprises a year and plans to add more partners over time, with no fixed number of bootcamp runs.
The focus on senior leadership is deliberate. According to Johnson Poh, IMDA’s assistant chief executive for enterprise transformation and innovation, earlier digital programmes had too often seen companies send technical teams rather than decision-makers. “The whole premise is that we want the CEOs and CTOs and leadership within the company to be able to experience that for themselves. That’s different from sending a tech team and then plugging in,” he says.
IMDA, he adds, is co-funding the programme. Support will continue after the bootcamp, including help for companies seeking to hire in-house digital teams.
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DLAB is an extension of IMDA’s Digital Leaders Programme (DLP), which aims to support 2,000 digitally mature, non-technology companies over three years. It also sits within the broader National AI Impact Programme unveiled at the 2026 Committee of Supply debates, which targets 10,000 enterprises and 100,000 workers over the same period.
The case for a stronger push is visible in Singapore’s own data. AI adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises rose to 14.5% in 2024 from 4.2% a year earlier, while adoption among larger companies climbed to 62.5% from 44%, according to IMDA’s Singapore Digital Economy Report.
More than 600 enterprises have gone through IMDA’s DLP since its launch in 2021, but most local businesses have yet to move into scaled AI deployment.
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Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo frames the problem in terms of leadership readiness. “Very often, and increasingly so in the age of AI, the technology is ready... [and] is capable of doing a lot. So what seems to be the problem? The problem is people may not be ready, and it’s not just the employees that we’re talking about. It is bosses themselves not being ready,” she says at DLAB’s launch earlier today. The bootcamp is therefore “meant to help more bosses become ready.”
During a panel discussion at the launch, Sagar Goel, managing director and partner at BCG, highlights that the gap between AI experimentation and measurable business value often comes down to leadership and execution. BCG’s annual global survey found that only 5% of companies were generating real value from AI, with leadership engagement running 12 times higher at those firms.
“[Companies that simply] deploy off-the-shelf tools could expect productivity gains of 10% to 20%. But the [greater] value of AI will come from reshaping, such as starting with the business outcome rather than the technology and redesigning end-to-end workflows,” he says.
If leadership determines whether AI efforts stay stuck at the pilot stage, governance is what helps companies scale them responsibly. Abhishek Chakravarty, EY-Parthenon partner for technology and AI strategy at Ernst and Young Solutions, states that governance was too often miscast as a constraint. “Taking a policy-first approach and thinking about governance not to slow us down, but to actually enable us to move faster, is really critical,” he says at the same panel discussion.
Putting AI to work in facilities management
Among the companies joining DLAB is CBM, a Singapore-based integrated facilities management provider that previously took part in IMDA’s DLP.
Through DLP, CBM received master classes on hiring, product strategy and AI techniques, as well as funding for its in-house technology team during its first two years. The support helped the company build an integrated facilities management platform and digital twin using AI and Internet of Things (IoT) technology to connect previously siloed systems across security, cleaning and maintenance.
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At the centre of that effort is digiHUB, CBM’s proprietary smart property management system, which provides real-time monitoring and analytics across building operations (from autonomous cleaning robots to smart sanitation systems) and enables remote command and control across more than 30 partner companies.
CBM is also extending its services into the residential market through the CBM Home App. The company employs more than 2,000 staff in Singapore and overseas and holds IMDA’s Data Protection Trustmark certification.
Derek Yoh, CBM’s chief technology officer and senior vice president, says the company was joining DLAB to focus on two priorities. One is strengthening its predictive maintenance engine as AI capabilities improve. The other is automating reports generated from IoT sensors deployed in the field. At present, specialists manually collect, analyse and write up sensor data before reports can be sent to customers.
Asked whether AI would reduce the need for workers, Yoh was direct. “You have to see the interaction as complementary rather than substitutive. There are different tasks for employees — some are more repetitive, where you can substitute automation. But for creative work or relational work, AI will not be able to replace that. Those have to work hand in hand."
