“The hub will offer business leaders opportunities to learn from success stories and their journey of digital transformation. We look forward to spurring fresh waves of AI development inspired by these advances,” says Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and the Ministry of Culture, Community, and Youth (MCCY) Low Yen Ling, at the launch of the innovation hub this morning
She adds that the hub will support the training of 2,000 professionals every year, in high-demand job areas like AI and cloud computing.
The hub is split into three zones, which are:
- The Aspiration Zone, which showcases how emerging technologies, such as generative AI, quantum computing and virtual reality, can transform Asia Pacific businesses and communities.
- The Acceleration Zone, where guests can learn from Amazon’s unique culture of innovation with examples of how Amazon has created long-term impact with technology solutions underpinned by a customer-obsessed mindset and a strong purpose-driven culture. The zone showcases AWS technical innovations, such as the cost-optimised and efficient AWS Graviton, Inferentia and Trainium chips, and AWS Outposts, a fully managed solution that extends AWS infrastructure to on-premises or edge locations.
- The Action Zone in the Working Backwards Studio, where customer discussion is summarised into a vision board to help customers visualise their ideas and develop concrete roadmaps with AWS.
See also: Google Cloud, DISG to help 300 Singapore companies take off with holistic AI transformation
“The AWS Innovation hub is about sharing ideas, the technologies/solutions and giving customers a clear path [or understanding] of what they need to do to transform [their business] and how we can help them make it happen,” says Jaime Vallés, vice president for AWS Asia Pacific & Japan, at a media briefing on the sidelines of the launch.
AWS aims to host over 1,000 C-suite leaders and business decision-makers annually at the hub, as well as offer an exclusive learning experience to 200 students from Singapore’s tertiary education institutions each year.
The AWS Innovation Hub adds to the company’s commitment to invest US$9 billion ($11.5 billion) into cloud infrastructure in Singapore by 2028. It expands on AWS’s global innovation offerings, including the AWS Builders Studio in Melbourne that connects customers with AWS technologists to build, experiment, validate, and test prototypes before scaling.
See also: Singapore government agencies gain secure AI access under GovTech–Google Cloud tie-up
Additionally, AWS brings start-ups, developers, investors, and industry experts together at the AWS Gen AI Lofts, which are pop-up collaborative spaces and immersive experiences aiming to foster innovation. The AWS Gen AI Lofts made stops in Bengaluru and Seoul in 2024, with future editions slated for Bengaluru and Osaka this year.
New AI Springboard initiative
AWS has also launched a new AI Springboard programme, in partnership with Digital Industry Singapore, to help 300 Singapore-based enterprises adopt and scale AI over the next 12 months.
As part of the initiative, AWS will offer up to $600,000 in cloud credits and training support per participating enterprise. This consists of a baseline $350,000 in dedicated AI Springboard credits, with the remaining $250,000 as additional cloud credits available via complementary AWS programmes such as the Migration Acceleration Program and AWS Lift, which help defray the costs of cloud adoption.
Enterprises under AI Springboard will gain access to AWS’s new Innovation Hub in Singapore, where they can explore AI use cases, engage with Amazon technologies, and develop transformation roadmaps using the company’s “Working Backwards” methodology.
They can work with approved consultancy partners, including AWS Partners AiRTS and Temus, to build and develop AI solutions through AI Centers of Excellence that achieve Minimum Viable Product status.
The programme also includes expert support from AWS’s Generative AI Innovation Center, offering guidance on responsible AI practices and monthly hands-on workshops on advanced tools such as generative AI assistants.
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Participating enterprises will further benefit from AWS Skill Builder 2025 subscriptions and subsidised training and salary support under the AWS Career Launchpad, in collaboration with training provider Trainocate.
The AI Springboard is a key programme under the Singapore government’s Enterprise Compute Initiative (ECI), which will channel up to $150 million to drive AI transformation in enterprises. Under ECI, the government will subsidise 70% of consultancy costs, capped at $105,000 per firm.
“The ECI targets more ambitious firms ready to push the AI frontier and provides them with targeted support to build a minimum viable product. DISG will partner with cloud service providers [like AWS] to deliver programmes under the ECI banner and nurture the next generation of AI Centres of Excellence,” says Low.
Besides AWS, Google Cloud is also supporting the ECI through its AI Cloud Takeoff programme that was launched earlier this month.
