Singapore's Ministry for Communications and Information (MCI) has launched a Digital Connectivity Blueprint (DCB), outlining the strategies to develop digital infrastructure across the country.
The "comprehensive" roadmap includes its top priorities and new frontiers towards achieving better opportunities and connectivity for people and enterprises.
The roadmap has been developed by a panel of advisors from the ministry and industry partners.
Singapore's Minister for Communications and Information & Second Minister for Home Affairs, Josephine Teo, told the Asia Tech x Singapore 2023 event that the blueprint has focussed on a holistic plan for Singapore to build the entire digital infrastructure stack.
"The initiative aims to enable people and businesses to reap opportunities for emerging tech trends," she said.
Digital infrastructure stack
MCI said it plans to strengthen Singapore's digital infrastructure stack consisting of hard, physical-digital, and soft infrastructure through five priorities.
- Provide capacity to enable international submarine cable landings to double within the next 10 years, "potentially catalysing" at least S$10 billion in overall submarine cable investments
- Build seamless end-to-end 10 Gbps (gigabits per second) domestic connectivity within the next five years
- Ensure resilience and security in computing infrastructure.
- Pioneer a roadmap for the growth of new green data centres, the ministry estimates that new capacity will invite private investments of S$10 - S$12 billion.
- Drive greater adoption of the Singapore Digital Utility (DU) Stack to expand the benefits of seamless digital transactions.
To effectively address the DCB goals, Teo said Singapore will also make moves in four nascent areas such as advancing the vision of Quantum-safe Singapore within the next decade, enhancing interest in greening software and so on.
The city-state wants to put in place foundations for pervasive autonomy to improve the reliability and security of devices and networks through standards setting, fostering interoperability through intervention at the middleware layer, and bringing ecosystem players together through the orchestration of pilots and use cases.
Moreover, the DCB also hinted at enabling innovative solutions in key industries with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite services. Singapore wants to ensure sufficient spectrum resources for satellite systems and develop pro-enterprise frameworks and policies.
Speaking about the plans, Western Digital's Vice President of Global Operations, Irving Tan said the Blueprint will serve as a foundation to support businesses to create value and spur innovation.
