⚡ Quick Summary
Published by The Alan Turing Institute, this report provides a country profile of Singapore’s approach to AI governance. It forms part of the AI governance around the world project, which maps jurisdictions using a consistent framework and primary sources. The profile covers high-level aims and principles, definitions of AI, key policy initiatives, and domestic and international AI standardisation. It describes a policy approach that prioritises innovation and strategic deployment in high socio-economic-impact sectors while seeking to build a trusted environment around AI.
The report finds that Singapore has not introduced AI-specific regulation. Instead, its approach combines voluntary sectoral guidance, horizontal non-binding frameworks, testing tools and standards activity. It identifies the Model AI Governance Framework, AI Verify, the AI Verify Foundation, the Model AI Governance Framework for Generative AI, the Singapore AI Safety Institute, and the financial-sector FEAT principles and Veritas toolkit. It also sets out how the AI Technical Committee adopts and develops standards, including SS ISO/IEC 42001:2024, Singapore’s adoption of ISO/IEC 42001:2023. The profile presents these initiatives descriptively and positions the wider project as a basis for comparative analysis and future work on regulatory interoperability.
🧩 What’s Covered
The profile proceeds from its overall account of Singapore’s governance approach to policy instruments and then standardisation.
- Executive summary and policy timeline: Summarises Singapore’s non-prescriptive, pro-innovation approach and provides a dated overview of seven initiatives, from the November 2018 FEAT Principles to the May 2024 Singapore AI Safety Institute. It highlights voluntary guidelines, testing frameworks and self-assessment toolkits as parts of the AI assurance ecosystem.
- Aims and principles: Connects AI policy to the Smart Nation initiative and its aims for digital transformation in health, urban mobility and finance. It lists 12 foundational principles cited by the Model AI Governance Framework, including accountability, auditability, explainability, fairness, transparency, robustness and security.
- Definitions: Compares the National AI Strategy’s definition of AI as the capability to simulate intelligent, human-like behaviour with the Model Framework’s account of technologies that simulate traits such as reasoning, learning and planning. It also records MAS’s AIDA definition for technologies assisting or replacing human decision-making.
- National strategy and advisory arrangements: Describes the 2019 National AI Strategy and NAIS 2.0, which has three systems, 10 enablers and 15 actions. It also covers the Advisory Council on the Ethical Use of AI and Data and its role advising government on ethical and legal issues arising from commercial deployment.
- Model AI Governance Framework: Explains the Framework’s two high-level principles—AI decisions should be explainable, transparent and fair, and AI solutions should be human-centric—and its four practical guidance areas. It notes the voluntary status of the Framework, ISAGO and the two Compendium of Use Cases volumes.
- Assurance and generative AI initiatives: Details AI Verify’s technical tests and process checks aligned to 11 internationally recognised principles, its initial support for supervised learning models, and the AI Verify Foundation’s open-source work. It covers Project Moonshot, the nine dimensions of the generative-AI framework, and the AI Safety Institute’s testing, research, policy and international collaboration mandate.
- Financial-sector guidance: Sets out the four FEAT pillars—fairness, ethics, accountability and transparency—and the Veritas initiative’s assessment methodologies, white papers, case studies and toolkit iterations. The report specifies that these are voluntary tools rather than obligations.
- Standardisation system and activity: Explains Enterprise Singapore’s role, the distinctions between Singapore Standards, Technical References and Workshop Agreements, and the AI Technical Committee’s domestic and international work. It records AI security and use-case technical references, adoption of SS ISO/IEC 42001:2024, and participation in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42.
💡 Why it matters?
For governance and compliance teams, the profile distinguishes Singapore’s voluntary guidance and assurance tools from binding AI-specific regulation, which the report says has not been introduced. It therefore helps organisations identify the relevant practical instruments: the Model AI Governance Framework’s governance areas, AI Verify’s tests and process checks, and financial-sector FEAT and Veritas materials.
For standards and assurance specialists, it also clarifies the national standards pathway and Singapore’s adoption of ISO/IEC 42001:2023 as SS ISO/IEC 42001:2024. The account of Technical References and Workshop Agreements helps readers understand the routes through which locally focused AI material may be developed and published.
❓ What’s Missing
The report is explicitly descriptive: the wider project does not comment on the efficacy of governance models adopted at jurisdictional level. It consequently does not assess whether Singapore’s voluntary frameworks, self-assessment tools or testing initiatives achieve their intended effects, nor does it compare their practical performance with other jurisdictions. The profile states that Singapore has not introduced AI-specific regulation, so it cannot offer a dedicated statutory AI compliance regime or a list of AI-specific legal duties. Its treatment of the Model AI Governance Framework for Generative AI also notes that the framework proposes considerations rather than specific practices or obligations. The report focuses on policy, standardisation and public initiatives rather than implementation outcomes.
👥 Best For
This profile is best suited to AI governance, policy and compliance leads needing a structured map of Singapore’s voluntary AI governance landscape. It is also useful for assurance and technical teams assessing the relevance of AI Verify, Project Moonshot, FEAT and Veritas, and for standards professionals tracking the AI Technical Committee and SS ISO/IEC 42001:2024.
📄 Source Details
AI governance around the world: Country profile: Singapore is an 18-page English report by Ana Alania, published by The Alan Turing Institute in August 2025. The document gives the citation “Alania, A. (2025). AI governance around the world: Singapore. The Alan Turing Institute.” Its printed DOI URL is https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16759758.
