Singapore's Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Google Cloud to use the latter's computing and AI solutions.

HTX will, under the MoU, use the Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) Air Gapped offering.

GDC is Google's on-premise offering, bringing Google Cloud hardware to an organization's data center. The first version of GDC was launched in 2021, with the cloud provider introducing the Air Gapped offering in the summer of 2024, which enables Google Cloud services to be accessed even without access to the Internet.

The GDC Air-Gapped deployment is planned for this year.

The MoU will see HTX and Google work together on AI security and cybersecurity research, AI model development, AI-enabled software solutions, as well as AI governance and training.

The two will also explore a generative AI solution accelerator for deployment on the GDC Air-Gapped platform.

“AI is poised to become a cornerstone of public sector operations, transforming how government agencies serve their constituents and make decisions. Our expanded partnership with HTX sees us working together to develop and deploy advanced AI and cloud solutions in the public safety domain in Singapore, and can serve as a model for governments around the world,” said Karan Bajwa, president of Asia Pacific, at Google Cloud.

“AI has the potential to transform our work in ensuring the safety and security of Singaporeans. The challenges we face in the realm of public safety are constantly changing, and we must stay ahead of the curve by leveraging the latest in AI technologies if we are to tackle them effectively,” added Ang Chee Wee, HTX’s chief AI officer and assistant chief executive, digital and enterprise.

HTX this week also signed agreements with Microsoft and Mistral AI, and Firmus Technologies.

With Microsoft and Mistral AI, the agency will work on its generative AI models and platforms, including HTX's Phoenix models. Microsoft infrastructure will handle the fine-tuning workloads. HTX has previously teamed up with Microsoft in 2022 to develop a sovereign cloud solution built on Microsoft Azure.

The MoU with Firmus Technologies, meanwhile, will see HTX and Firmus jointly research liquid-cooled AI infrastructure, focused on reducing land and energy use, and advancing GPU performance density.

The Singaporean government has had a strategy of moving less sensitive data to the cloud since 2018, when it launched a five-year plan to migrate around 70 percent of its IT systems.