Google Cloud, Digital Industry Singapore Launch ‘AI Cloud Takeoff’ Program

Google Cloud and Digital Industry Singapore (DISG) today announced the launch of “AI Cloud Takeoff” (AI CTO), a full-fledged national program to establish AI Centres of Excellence (AI CoEs) within 300 digitally-mature, Singapore-based companies over the next 12 months. This will empower them to create AI-driven intellectual property, products, and services that boost their competitiveness and unlock new revenue opportunities.

AI Cloud Takeoff is the pioneering program under the Singapore Government’s “Enterprise Compute Initiative,” which was first announced during its Budget 2025 statement. Notably, the success of Google Cloud and DISG’s initial AI CTO pilot with 30 companies in November 2024 validated the program framework while providing valuable insights that informed the development of the broader Enterprise Compute Initiative.

Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and the Ministry of Culture, Community, and Youth (MCCY) Low Yen Ling was the Guest-of-Honour and delivered officiating remarks at the program launch event.

Highlighting the significance of the AI CTO, Philbert Gomez, Senior Vice President, Head, and Executive Director at Digital Industry Singapore, said: “The Enterprise Compute Initiative is a pioneering national program designed to bring together cloud service providers and IT consulting partners to accelerate AI-driven transformation for businesses. Our successful pilot with Google Cloud laid a strong foundation, enabling Singapore-based companies like Embed, Seaco, and YCH Group to harness tailored AI solutions that enhance operational efficiency and strengthen global competitiveness. Through the Enterprise Compute Initiative, we’re excited by the potential for hundreds of Singapore-based enterprises to be enabled by AI—driving innovation, productivity gains, and sustainable growth across industries.”

Using the proven framework designed by Google Cloud, AI CTO will help each company establish a dedicated in-house unit (i.e., an AI CoE) that will centralise AI-related expertise, resources, and governance; drive technology, process, and people transformation; and ensure AI innovation initiatives are aligned with business objectives, scalable, and implemented securely and responsibly.

Serene Sia, Country Director, Singapore and Malaysia, at Google Cloud, said: “While businesses were initially hesitant to embrace AI, often associating it with consumer-grade tools, Google Cloud programs like AI Trailblazers successfully laid the groundwork by emphasising enterprise AI’s distinct advantages. This led many to experiment with and adopt enterprise AI solutions. With companies now pursuing more advanced, purpose-built solutions to unlock greater value, they must address new challenges like building robust data-to-AI pipelines, fostering a learning culture, securing internal buy-in, prioritising the right use cases, and integration with existing systems. With DISG, we’ve designed AI CTO to help these firms implement a practical roadmap for holistic transformation, empowering them to scale enterprise AI innovation with confidence and readiness.”

AI Cloud Takeoff: Providing a Clear Pathway to Enterprise AI Excellence at Scale

To meet program milestones—which include developing and piloting at least one minimum viable product (MVP) that addresses a high-value AI, generative AI (gen AI), or agentic AI use case within a set budget and a six-month timeframe—AI Cloud Takeoff will provide each participating company with access to:

• A two-week AI capacity building bootcamp with Google Cloud experts to establish an AI CoE that can effectively coordinate AI innovation initiatives across departments and lines of business, identify use cases aligned with corporate strategy and core priorities, and prioritize the right use case(s) by evaluating their expected value generation, feasibility, and actionability;
• Technical consultancy services to facilitate the design of a structured blueprint that guides end-to-end AI solution development, from data exploration and experimentation, to model training, deployment, performance monitoring, and optimisation based on clearly defined metrics;
• Google Cloud credits to subsidise their use of industry-leading serverless compute and data-to-AI platform services like BigQuery and Vertex AI for solution development, and Google Cloud Skills Boost for Organisations for employee upskilling and change management;
• Technical implementation services to build, test, and implement interoperable AI solutions (i.e., MVPs) that can be seamlessly integrated with existing workflows and systems, are grounded (i.e., only draw outputs from data sources the company chooses, trusts, and controls), and uphold stringent data privacy and AI security

Companies will work with their DISG-appointed, Google Cloud-certified technical consultancy and implementation partner of choice to establish their AI CoEs and receive financial incentives worth up to SGD $500,000 from DISG and Google Cloud, disbursed in tranches as they meet various milestones. Google Cloud partners appointed by DISG for the program include Accenture, AsiaPac, CloudMile, Deloitte, Kyndryl, NTT Data, and Searce.

Applications are now open for the full-fledged AI Cloud Takeoff program. At its launch event, Embed, Seaco, and YCH Group demonstrated the AI solutions they have developed through the initial AI Cloud Takeoff pilot.

Embed: Gen AI for Game-Changing Experiences at Family Entertainment Centres

For families and youth who have had fun at family entertainment centtrs (FECs) like Timezone in Asia Pacific, Dave & Buster’s in the US, or Gamestate in Europe, Embed‘s cashless business management systems have been the silent engine behind their experiences. The company’s kiosk, game card, wearable, and mobile wallet solutions enable everything from tap-and-play, to quick credit purchases and reloads, to prize redemption at FECs in 59 countries.

As part of its strategy to enable FEC operators to deliver enhanced and dynamic guest experiences through hyper-customization and its deeply integrated solutions ecosystem, Embed has partnered with Searce to develop “Sidequest AI.” This new solution uses BigQuery to process anonymised gameplay and transaction data to gain user insight and contextual understanding. It then utilises the Gemini API on Vertex AI, with human-in-the-loop, to generate tailored recommendations for unique in-venue experiences. For instance, users reloading game cards could receive side quests to customise their avatar or achieve specific, time-bound goals at their favourite game machines to earn bonus rewards.

Andy Welsh, Chief Technology Officer at Embed, said: “Through AI Cloud Takeoff, our teams have gained a deep understanding of how to operationalise AI and pinpoint our most valuable business opportunities. Searce’s guidance, for example, helped us prioritize and engineer Sidequest AI for seamless kiosk integration, a strategic decision validated by the strong demand we’re seeing for this solution, especially in North and South America. We now have the in-house knowledge and capabilities to rapidly elevate the rest of our product offerings using Google Cloud AI, an achievement previously unthinkable.”

Yash Thakker, Director, Solutions Consulting, Asia Pacific, at Searce, said: “Practical solution design is crucial for successful AI deployment in real-world environments. During the AI CTO pilot, we optimised Sidequest AI’s functionality and performance by balancing on-premise data caching with Google Cloud functions utilization, ensuring sustainable and cost-effective implementation for Embed and its customers. We’re proud that this innovative solution has already been adopted in North America and will continue supporting Embed and more AI CTO participants to catalyse their AI transformation journeys.”

Seaco: Multilingual, Multimodal AI Shores Up Container Depot Operations

Intermodal dry and refrigerated containers and tanks are used to transport anything and everything. As a global leader in providing leasing solutions for diverse sectors, Seaco‘s 2.4 million 20-foot equivalent unit (TEU) fleet facilitates the flow of essential goods and equipment between 500 shipping ports and depots across 51 countries via its 23 global offices, making it a key enabler of global commerce and other primary industries.

Efficiently manufacturing, maintaining, and redeploying containers is a critical driver of Seaco’s business. Key to this process: before a container can be redeployed, it must be returned to a depot for inspection. Based on this assessment, it undergoes necessary maintenance before being graded to confirm its suitability for future cargo.

To reimagine depot operations, Seaco has partnered with CloudMile to develop a multilingual, multimodal AI agent that automates container damage classifications and repair notifications. Now, depot staff can simply snap and upload photos of a container while adding voice notes using their mobile. Utilising Google Cloud’s full suite of services, this Seaco AI agent detects and qualifies damages from photos, extracts relevant details from voice notes, and converts this information into readable, actionable next steps in Seaco’s cloud-based SAP enterprise resource planning system.

Damian Leach, Chief Information Officer at Seaco, said: “AI Cloud Takeoff brought structure to our AI innovation pipeline. We created a DevHack initiative for employees to surface grassroots innovation and pilot AI use cases, and my team’s focus is to help Seaco boost productivity, improve operational efficiency, and increase revenue. The automation of about 220,000 annual container inspections was a high-value use case that emerged directly from DevHack. The ease of integrating Google Cloud platform capabilities proved essential in creating an agentic solution that’s available to all our partners anywhere in the world.”

Jeremy Heng, Managing Director, Southeast Asia, at CloudMile, said: “Interoperability, user experience, and scalability must be top priorities in any AI innovation initiative. We therefore recommended the use of Google Cloud’s open AI APIs, which could be easily integrated with Seaco’s SAP system and leverage Workato for automation and orchestration between platforms. We also optimised the solution for staff who would find it hard to take photos and type, and we ensured it could support multiple spoken languages due to Seaco’s global footprint. With the solution set for production testing in Tuas, we look forward to supporting efforts to scale its deployment both locally and internationally.”

YCH Group: Custom AI Agents to Be Deployed First at Vietnam SuperPort

Vietnam SuperPort, jointly developed by T&T Group and Singapore-headquartered YCH Group (YCH), is a first-of-its-kind multimodal logistics hub in Vietnam. Spanning 83 hectares in Vinh Phuc, it integrates rail, road, air, and sea transportation modes with dry port, cargo terminals, and supply chain nerve centre operations to facilitate seamless commerce between Vietnam, Southeast Asia, China, and beyond.

To advance its innovation roadmap for Vietnam SuperPort, YCH has partnered with Kyndryl to embed next-generation AI capabilities into its off-airport cargo terminal (OACT) operations. Using Google Cloud’s Document AI Workbench, they have jointly developed a custom AI agent that accurately extracts critical information from diverse cargo-related documents, including bills of lading, packing lists, and customs declarations submitted in PDF, image, or handwritten formats. This agent then validates the information against a database of cargo-specific shipping regulations to ensure compliance.

Kyndryl and YCH have also built a customised object detection AI agent. Underpinned by Google Cloud’s AutoML models that are trained to recognise prohibited goods, this detection agent analyses images from X-ray cargo screening, logs any findings, and alerts administrators and cargo handlers to promptly halt cargo movements and address identified issues.

Dr. Yap Kwong Weng, Chief Executive Officer, at Vietnam SuperPort, said: “Vietnam SuperPort will feature pioneering AI solutions developed with Kyndryl through AI Cloud Takeoff. These innovations are expected to boost staff productivity by up to 35% and cut errors by 50%, greatly enhancing port efficiency, security, and regional delivery speed.”

Andrew Lim, Managing Director, ASEAN and Korea, at Kyndryl, said, “During the AI CTO pilot, we utilised Google Cloud’s AI and gen AI models, incorporating crucial organisation—and industry-specific context, to create tailored solutions. For YCH, this involved using past cargo documentation and test images of prohibited items mapped against precise shipping regulations. Our work has resulted in functional AI and gen AI solutions that can be scaled and deployed in production in Vietnam SuperPort and are subsequently transferable to supply chain cities in Singapore and Malaysia.