Singapore Budget 2026: Channel ecosystem partners ready to support Singapore AI goals

CRN Asia reached out to several partners in the channel ecosystem to get their views on how they will make the most of the AI opportunities.

With Singapore focused on developing its AI ecosystem and workforce in the country, Lawrence Wong, Prime Minister of Singapore stated that AI must serve national interests and the people. This means making sure there is a clear definition of how AI is developed and used in Singapore.

“We will set clear rules to ensure it is applied responsibly and safely. And we will ensure that its benefits are shared widely across society. Harnessed well, AI will be a strategic advantage for Singapore. It can help us overcome our structural constraints — our limited natural resources, rapidly ageing population, and tight labour market,” he said at parliament when tabling Singapore’s 2026 budget.

Given this, Singapore channel ecosystem, which includes distributors, system integrators and such will be strategizing on how they can best work with vendors to ensure the country’s AI goals are achieved. CRN Asia reached out to several partners in the channel ecosystem to get their views on how they will make the most of the opportunities.

Mark Tan, Vice President & Country General Manager for Tech Data Singapore

Budget 2026 signals clear opportunities for the IT ecosystem as the country positions itself to lead from the front in maximizing AI potential and strengthening security capabilities. As the focus on AI deployment at the enterprise and individual level, bridging skills gaps, and safeguarding critical systems grows, strategically investing in high-growth technologies will be crucial for channel partners to help businesses innovate and manage risk effectively.

Being a value-added distributor, we are uniquely positioned to help Singaporean businesses make sense of this evolving landscape by connecting them to the right offerings and simplifying complexity, so AI and security initiatives can drive real-world outcomes that create meaningful impact.

Mark Tham, Country Managing Director, Singapore at Accenture

Singapore’s new AI-forward initiatives signal that we’ve moved beyond experimentation into the era of enterprise-scale AI transformation. They reflect what we are seeing in the region: AI is no longer a side initiative — it is becoming central to how organizations grow, compete and reinvent.

The formation of the National AI Council provides high-level sponsorship and alignment across public and private sectors, while the national AI missions anchor efforts around clear value creation. This mirrors a critical priority Accenture has identified among leading enterprises — scaling AI with intent, governance and measurable business outcomes.

For many organizations, the hardest part of the AI journey is not ideation, but execution at scale. It requires building a secure, AI-enabled digital core, modernizing data and cloud foundations, and preparing the workforce to work alongside increasingly autonomous systems. Without these foundations, AI remains stuck in pilots.

Singapore’s continued investments in AI infrastructure, policy clarity and workforce readiness create the conditions for enterprises to scale responsibly and confidently. In doing so, businesses can move beyond using AI as a cost lever and instead harness it as a growth engine — driving resilience, unlocking new revenue streams and accelerating enterprise reinvention.

Cassandra Goh, CEO, Silverlake

The National AI Mission for the Finance sector and the Champions of AI program provide a strategic framework that could introduce a new era in banking innovation, compelling financial institutions to move beyond isolated pilots toward comprehensive, end-to-end AI transformation. The 400% tax deductions for AI expenditures under the enhanced Enterprise Innovation Scheme will provide fiscal flexibility crucial for the industry to modernize legacy cores with high-performance, AI-native architectures.

As a regional leader in financial technology, we are ready to help our partners harness these strategic advantages to build future-ready banks that will secure Singapore’s leadership in a fragmented global economy.

Yves Cramazou, Managing Director, ASEAN, DXC Technology

Singapore’s move to establish a National AI Council recognizes that AI competitiveness depends on execution at scale, not experimentation. Many enterprises are eager to adopt AI but remain constrained by legacy infrastructure, fragmented data and operating models built for a pre-AI era.

The opportunity lies in modernizing core systems while redesigning roles and upskilling teams in parallel. Aligning digital infrastructure with workforce transformation is what turns AI investment into productivity gains. Singapore’s advantage is not in building frontier models, but in deploying AI securely and at speed. A coordinated national approach creates the conditions for enterprises to operationalize AI responsibly, strengthen resilience and remain globally competitive.

David Nguyen, FPT Software Senior Vice President, FPT Asia Pacific Chief Executive Officer, FPT Corporation

The new national AI measures will be critical in scaling enterprise AI readiness and strengthening Singapore’s competitive workforce. Developing a sustainable, AI-augmented talent pipeline is essential to realizing the vision of the Budget.

To truly build an AI-ready workforce, organizations must go beyond isolated use cases and embed an AI-first mindset at scale. At FPT, this mindset is a core pillar of our organizational AI strategy. We encourage teams in Singapore and across our global operations to approach problem-solving in partnership with AI, integrating it into everyday decision-making and delivery. This requires a strong emphasis on critical thinking and evaluation frameworks, ensuring employees understand when and how to apply AI responsibly and effectively to unlock its full value from the outset.

To support this cultural shift, FPT has embedded AI throughout our people development journey. Through strategic partnerships with global AI leaders like NVIDIA, Mila Institute and Landing AI, we have nurtured next-generation talents via initiatives like residency programs, AI hackathons, AI labs and AI factories in collaboration with our partners. These initiatives have helped scale a workforce of over 25,000 AI-augmented, certified engineers, ready to deliver high-impact solutions to clients worldwide.

AI is an irreversible force that unlocks new capabilities and redefines how organizations compete. Singapore’s ambitions in AI are bold and inspiring but realizing them will require businesses and individuals to embrace both the opportunities and the risks of AI, and to act decisively. By using AI to enhance human intelligence and productivity, while staying anchored in the core values of trust, creativity and empathy, organizations can create enduring value and cement Singapore’s global leadership in innovation.