DPM Heng Swee Keat at Asia Tech X Singapore Summit 2022 & More News Here

Ministers,

Excellencies, 

Ladies and gents, 

An excellent morning. I’m glad to be again for the second version of the ATX Summit.

The inaugural version final yr was absolutely digital. So I’m pleased that we’re holding it in a hybrid format this yr. A really heat welcome to everybody. 

Digital expertise is altering the world, and COVID-19 has accelerated the tempo of change. 

AI and IoT are actually extra pervasive. More actions are going surfing. 

The digital economic system is rising swiftly, at the same time as there are various untapped alternatives. 

But because the world shifts on-line, so too have malicious actors and threats. 

There was a 50% improve in cyberattacks on company networks final yr, and a 20-fold improve in ransomware assaults in opposition to governments.   

Attacks on SolarWinds and the Colonial Pipeline function a reminder of how such threats might derail the digital economic system if left unchecked. 

A brand new wave of digital expertise is rising, identified loosely as Web 3.0. 

The metaverse, NFT, DeFi (“DE-FY”), DAO (“DAO”). Are these boon or bane?   

We are gathered right here in the present day at a important second. 

Beyond the digital revolution, there are different structural shifts, together with a better emphasis on sustainability in addition to an ageing inhabitants in some elements of the world. 

There are additionally a number of rapid challenges – studying to dwell with COVID-19, managing the fallout of the Russia-Ukraine struggle, and mitigating international inflation and the danger of one other international recession.  

Despite the pull of a number of forces, we should keep centered on constructing a greater future for individuals.  

In the context of the digital revolution, this implies staying open to rising disruptions, dealing decisively with threats, and taking advantage of the  out there alternatives. 

Let me share my ideas on how we are able to accomplish that. 

Openness to Emerging Disruptions

First, we should method rising disruptions with openness.

Web 3.0 remains to be nascent and but to be absolutely outlined. We have seen a fair proportion of passionate advocates and demanding sceptics. 

Crypto property, specifically, have garnered a lot curiosity. Earlier on, because of their phenomenal development and guarantees of upper returns, and recently, as a result of crash of Terra Luna, and the rout of crypto currencies.

The method to method Web 3.0 is to maintain an open thoughts. We should pierce by each the hubris and the veil of suspicion, to know the possibly transformative underlying applied sciences. Let us not throw the infant out with the tub water. 

The underlying applied sciences benefit additional exploration.

Tokenisation allows fractionalisation of property, which might enable for better liquidity, higher worth discovery, and entry to illiquid property. 

Distributed ledgers, with out the necessity for intermediaries, scale back price, forestall information monopolies, and discourage rent-seeking behaviour. 

Allowing for simultaneous settlement – with fee and supply happening at the identical time – might considerably scale back settlement dangers between counterparties.   

The biggest potential for these new applied sciences might be in cross-border transactions.

One instance is Project Dunbar, which brings collectively the Bank of International Settlements Innovation Hub, Singapore, and several other different like-minded international locations.

Project Dunbar explores how a typical platform for a number of central financial institution digital currencies might allow cheaper, quicker and safer cross-border funds.

The undertaking has validated varied design approaches by prototyping. It not too long ago revealed suggestions that can help the G20 roadmap for enhancing cross-border funds.

One of the supporting tech platforms for Project Dunbar is Partior (“PAR-TEE-OR”), a tech firm, established by DBS, Temasek and JP Morgan. Partior allows a real-time blockchain-based interbank clearing and settlement community, utilizing industrial financial institution digital cash or wholesale CBDCs.

The crypto asset area is continually evolving. We recognise it is a extremely dangerous space, nevertheless it additionally has the potential to rework the way forward for finance.

We should proceed to adapt our guidelines to make sure that regulation stays facilitative of innovation, and but addresses the important thing dangers that crypto property pose.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, has constantly warned the general public in opposition to buying and selling in cryptocurrencies, and has taken steps to restrict promotion of cryptocurrencies to most of the people earlier this yr.

Many traders suffered losses and even misplaced their life financial savings within the latest meltdown of TerraUSD and Luna, which triggered knock-on results on Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies.

Retail traders particularly ought to keep away from cryptocurrencies. We can’t emphasise this sufficient. 

But the digital asset ecosystem includes a complete vary of providers past cryptocurrency buying and selling. We stay eager to work with blockchain and digital asset gamers to encourage innovation, and construct up belief within the sector. 

In the previous 2 years, MAS has granted licenses and in-principle approvals to 11 digital fee token service suppliers.   

These embrace stablecoin gamers like Paxos, crypto exchanges like Coinhako, and conventional monetary establishments like DBS Vickers.

We will proceed to guage purposes, and facilitate dwell experiments by regulatory sandboxes, to allow secure adoption within the monetary sector.

MAS has additionally been working with the business on a number of digital asset initiatives.  I’m happy to launch Project Guardian, a collaborative effort by MAS to accomplice the business to discover the tokenisation of monetary property and develop the way forward for finance infrastructure. The first business pilot shall be to discover potential DeFi purposes in wholesale funding markets. 

In brief, we should method rising tech with an open thoughts, separating the hubris from its true underlying potential.

Through regulation, we work constructively to grasp the good points of those new applied sciences, and accomplice accountable and modern gamers with robust threat administration capabilities to construct the foundations of the digital asset ecosystem.

Vigilance to Intensifying Threats

Second, let me transfer on to how we method threats in our on-line world. To harness the total potential of our on-line world, we should guard in opposition to malicious actions – together with cyber heists, information theft, and cyber terrorism. 

The excellent news is that the worldwide cyber response is ramping up.  

The international cybersecurity market is projected to develop at greater than 14% yearly within the coming years, quicker than the expansion of the digital economic system.  

Countries around the globe are formulating cybersecurity methods, introducing laws, and constructing capabilities. 

Singapore has performed likewise.   

We have made digital defence the sixth pillar of Total Defence, and up to date the Singapore Cybersecurity Strategy. We are additionally nurturing a pipeline of cybersecurity professionals to fulfill rising wants.  

At the identical time, we’re setting broader social requirements for cybersecurity – urging corporations to place in place strong measures for dealing with information, and elevating cyber consciousness amongst our individuals.  

But cyber threats, like most legal actions, are finally a “cat and mouse” recreation. We attempt to keep one step forward of malicious actors, however these actors search to use new gaps. The cyber panorama can be quick evolving, with quantum expertise as a possible recreation changer. 

Strong encryption is vital to the safety of digital networks. The present encryption customary – AES 256 – has held up, as few have the computing energy to make use of brute pressure to interrupt the encryption.   

But this might change with quantum computing. For some cryptographic features, the quickest quantum pc is greater than 150 million instances quicker than the quickest supercomputer. Quantum computer systems can remedy in minutes an issue which takes a supercomputer 10,000 years. 

This is one purpose why quantum expertise is a worldwide analysis focus. Quantum can be a key analysis space beneath our nationwide R&D plans.  

The Centre for Quantum Technology, or CQT, in Singapore is one in all our nationwide analysis centres of excellence, and a number one analysis institute on this subject on the planet.   

More not too long ago, we began the Quantum Engineering Programme, or QEP, to use quantum tech to unravel real-world wants and to construct up quantum engineering capabilities and human capital.

One latest initiative beneath QEP is the National Quantum-Safe Network, which seeks to deploy industrial quantum-safe communication expertise in our power grids and different important networks, in addition to for the dealing with of delicate information, together with these associated to healthcare and finance. 

Let me announce two new packages beneath the Quantum Engineering Programme in the present day. 

The first program is the National Quantum Computing Hub, shaped by pooling experience from CQT and throughout different establishments in Singapore. This will allow us to additional strengthen expertise growth – as it is a fast-growing space – and supply higher entry to quantum tech. 

The second program is the National Quantum Fabless Foundry, which can help micro and nanofabrication of quantum units throughout accomplice cleanrooms. Building on our strengths in superior manufacturing, we search to accomplice the business to develop extra quantum units for fixing real-world challenges. 

Our funding in quantum computing and quantum engineering is a part of our method of making an attempt to anticipate the long run, and proactively shaping the long run that we would like. 

The better the potential of our on-line world, the better the cyber dangers. Malicious actors will search to revenue from these by any means. It just isn’t adequate to attempt to keep only one step forward. If we do, we frequently find yourself one step behind, chasing down and shutting the final menace. 

To counter them, we not solely want to stay vigilant to current threats, we should additionally keep invested to remain a lot additional forward. In this fashion, we are able to put a better distance between important elements of the digital area and menace actors.   

Collaboration to Unleash Potential

This brings me to my third level – on collaboration to unleash potential.

Many international locations have developed a digital first technique, with a robust emphasis on adoption, funding in innovation, and shutting the digital divide.   

Singapore is doing the identical. We began the Smart Nation motion nearly a decade in the past.

Digitalisation and innovation are core to our future economic system technique.

We began the Digital for Life motion to allow our individuals to embrace digital as a lifelong pursuit.

We are actively serving to smaller retailers and firms digitalise funds and processes. 

These efforts can obtain extra, if we collaborate broadly and extra successfully. 

We are actually enabling collaboration by digital marketplaces, and thru platforms such because the Open Innovation Platform which matches real-world issues with innovation options.

The Open Innovation Platform has seen an uptick in collaboration since COVID-19, internet hosting over 200 challenges for the reason that begin of the pandemic. 

Such platforms are a great begin. But the matching of issues to potential options tends to be extra piecemeal. 

We want extra proactive collaboration to raised faucet new alternatives – the place stakeholders come collectively to construct the digital commons, in such a manner that everybody will get again greater than they put in.

One good instance is SGTraDex, which is a public-private partnership that I launched at this Summit final yr.

Even in one of the best of instances, provide chains haven’t been most effective. The present disaster has additional uncovered the fragility of provide chains. But no single firm – nevertheless dominant – can by itself optimise its provide chains and construct better resilience.

SGTraDex is a typical information infrastructure for the sharing of regulatory, logistics and commerce financing information. This will allow provide chain gamers to optimise cargo dealing with and operations, and construct confidence in commerce financing.   

The extra corporations we’ve on board SGTraDex, the better its worth. From the outset we designed SGTraDex to be “plug and play”, not as a bespoke system. 

Over the previous yr, three use circumstances have been piloted to check the worth of SGTraDex. These pilots have been profitable, yielding very substantial financial savings for present individuals.

I thank all corporations and businesses which are a part of this effort, together with PSA International and Trafigura Group.

We are actually into the subsequent part of SGTraDex, with plans to develop this digital widespread over the subsequent few years. 

We will develop SGTraDex to incorporate just a few extra use circumstances, together with inexperienced and sustainable commerce financing.

We will search to enrol extra corporations throughout the provide chain ecosystem onto SGTraDex.

Over time, we hope to develop SGTraDex past our shores and contribute to the optimisation of provide chains overseas. 

Minister Josephine Teo will announce the main points tomorrow. 

SGTraDex is an instance of how we should put money into the digital commons to unlock new alternatives. 

We should design the digital commons to be inclusive from the outset and make it straightforward to onboard new individuals.

We should additionally construction the digital commons in such a manner that the worth created accrues pretty to all individuals.   

Only by collaboration, can we push past current limitations to unlock new alternatives for the betterment of everybody. 

Conclusion

Let me conclude. We are at a important part of world financial restoration as we draw back from the shadows of COVID-19 solely to come across new challenges. Structurally, technological advances, particularly digitalisation, are reshaping the worldwide economic system.

We should keep centered on creating a greater life for individuals.  I’ve highlighted three ways in which we are able to accomplish that.

The first is to maintain an open thoughts on rising tech, and to separate the hubris from its true potential.

The second is to stay vigilant and put money into cybersecurity, in order that we are able to keep forward of threats.

The third is to unlock new alternatives by collaboration, by working collectively to construct an inclusive digital commons. 

There is far more we are able to do to harness the potential of digital expertise, and we should transcend phrases to motion.

Over the subsequent few days, this convention will cowl many areas, from engendering belief in the usage of AI to empowering girls in tech.   

I hope you’ll not solely trade concepts, but additionally germinate new partnerships that can flip concepts into motion, and motion into actuality.

As a Global-Asia node for expertise, innovation and enterprise, Singapore can help you and your organization on this journey of discovery and development.

Through our collective motion, we are able to create a greater future for Asia and the world.

I want everybody a productive convention. Thank you.  

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