Opening Remarks by SMS Tan Kiat How At SEA-LION Summit 2025 on 28 NOV 2025

A very good afternoon. I am very glad to join you today at the SEA-LION Summit.

I have heard so much from Dr Luke Ong and Mark Pereira about the amazing achievements of SEA-LION and how it is spurring the wave of innovation in the region. I am very happy to be here and have the chance to see many of the projects. The SEA-LION Summit is a very good platform to bring people together to look at problem statements and develop AI solutions to bring impact to the region.

Allow me just to take a step back to set the context of why we started on SEA-LION project in 2023.

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   SEA-LION is one of two national Large Language Models (LLMs) under Singapore's S$70M National Multimodal Large Language Model Programme, alongside MERaLiON.

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   Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) had launched this programme with AI Singapore and A*STAR to drive regional and domestic innovation in AI, build capabilities in AI R&D, and develop AI talent.

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   While SEA-LION is not a frontier model competing on the global leaderboards, it is a base model grounded in regional context, capable of understanding the unique characteristics of our region.

To accelerate the adoption of LLMs such as SEA-LION, AI Singapore (AISG) launched the inaugural Pan-Southeast Asia AI Developer Challenge earlier this year.

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   Developers were challenged to build LLM-powered solutions in Healthcare, Finance, Education, and the Public Sector. Solutions were to be tailored to the diverse cultures, language, and needs of our region.

I was very heartened by the strong response to the challenge, with over 200 teams from around the region registering to participate, with the oldest participant at 68 years old.

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   This shows how diverse and dynamic Southeast Asia's ecosystem is, and how eager we are to adopt AI, innovate solutions, and create impact in our region.

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   It also shows that we have an emerging talent pool that is willing and able to do so.

We've seen this energy throughout today's conference.

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   From how Indonesia is using AI to transform its finance, manufacturing, and healthcare sectors;

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   To how Micro-, Small-, and Medium-sized Enterprises across ASEAN are embracing AI to boost productivity, resilience, and competitiveness through regionally tailored programmes and partnerships.

This enthusiasm is well-placed. Southeast Asia has tremendous economic potential:

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   We have over 680 million people, with a large young population - many of whom grew up in the internet and digital age - joining the workforce.

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   We're looking at a digital economy projected to reach US$1 trillion by 2030.

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   We're an important node in global supply chains.

If our people and businesses can harness technology like AI well, we can realise this potential and create significant value for our communities and economies.

But how do we enable this? I believe talents will drive this, and we need bilingual AI talents - professionals who are fluent in both their domain expertise and AI technology. They are able to understand the business and technology so they can apply it to solve real-world business needs and derive value from there. That will allow us to realise the full potential of AI in transforming our economy and create better opportunities for our people.

Let me share some examples of how we are nurturing such talent in Singapore.

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   We are helping the broad base of enterprises, including SMEs, adopt AI-enabled solutions and train more bilingual AI talents in their companies.

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      IMDA is working with tech vendors to bundle training into the packages of AI solutions they offer.

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      In other words, the companies adopting AI solutions will not just get the AI tools, they will also get training support to ensure their employees get the skills and knowledge to make full use of these tools. While we are going to invest in technology, it is important to see it not as the end itself but as an important enabler of your business transformation. To achieve this, you need your employees to be able to fully use the tools that you put in their hands.

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      We will also find opportunities to collaborate with partners including our Trade Associations. We will jointly promote AI awareness through workshops and showcases and develop AI solutions that are relevant to their specific needs.

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   We are working through our flagship TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) programmes to help non-tech professionals gain AI-fluency. This is important because AI, like other general-purpose technologies, will affect all sectors and companies, and have a transformative impact on business models.

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      This means partnering professional bodies in horizontal functions, such as accounting and HR, to identify core activities in each function that can be optimised with the help of AI.

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   We are creating physical spaces to build our AI community. Lorong AI, which is located on 22 Cross Street, is our co-working hub that brings together research, government, and industry ecosystems to share knowledge, experiment with ideas, and build connections.

But nurturing individual bilingual talent is only the beginning. To drive AI adoption and innovation across Southeast Asia, we need effective cross-cultural teams that deeply understand our region's diversity. Teams that:

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   Understand that an AI solution for healthcare in Indonesia needs to account for different ways families make decisions.

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   Know that education tools for the Philippines must respect different pedagogical traditions while delivering personalised learning.

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   Grasp that financial tools must navigate not just different regulatory environments, but different cultural approaches to trust and financial relationships.

To achieve this, it is useful for talent and teams from across the region to connect, collaborate, and learn from one another.

Platforms like AIMX and the Pan-Southeast Asia AI Developer Challenge are therefore very important.

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   These are opportunities that help Southeast Asian talent deepen their understanding of the region, nurture our collective AI community, and find new ways to collaborate.

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   The participants in the challenge have shown that this is possible.

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   And their journeys also demonstrate how focused development over just two months can deliver solutions that leverage AI not just for business success, but also for the public good.

The collaborative spirit and innovative thinking we've witnessed through this challenge must not end here.

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   Many people ask, "Is this a bubble?" Well, valuation of companies aside, I believe that this technology is here to stay. And we often underestimate the long-term impact on technology and overestimate the short-term impact. Fundamentally, this technology is here to stay, and it is important for us to use this technology while putting in the guardrails to mitigate the possible downsides.

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   AI is a long-term game. Its true value only emerges when thoughtfully embedded into systems, organisations, and societies, and over time improves lives and livelihoods across our region.

I commend all the participants in this challenge. You have done well, and my encouragement to all of you is that - please don't stop here. Let us continue working together and learning from one another to power Southeast Asia's AI future - building solutions that create economic value and public good while serving our community.

Thank you.