SINGAPORE: NCS will grow its pool of AI engineers embedded with clients from 100 to over 300 over two years, as it opened an AI Mission Centre in Ang Mo Kio on Thursday (Oct 29).

The centre is designed to help organisations accelerate AI projects from proof of concept to production-scale deployment.

NCS, an information technology and communications engineering firm owned by Singtel, currently has 100 forward-deployed engineers. These AI specialists work directly within client teams to provide guidance and expertise.

NCS chief executive Sam Liew said the increase will come from reskilling existing employees and hiring new staff.

He said the embedded engineers will work with customers to co-create solutions that the customers can eventually own and operate themselves.

“They will go deep into the customers' domain and understand the problem, develop solutions around AI, and actually revamp all the core processes within the business,” said Mr Liew.

Mr Liew said some companies face challenges in adopting AI, such as legacy systems or inconsistent data.

TURNING AI STRATEGY INTO ACTION Speaking at the launch, Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo said Singapore must build upon its foundations in the AI domain and not give up any edge it has grown over the years.

Mrs Teo said any country or city can produce a national or municipal AI strategy with little difficulty. “ChatGPT can do it for you,” she said.

The harder task, she said, is to have “a real bias for action” and to build what is real.

She listed several things that count. The first is infrastructure, including data centres, pipelines and mobile networks that can carry the traffic, as well as computing power. These are “hard things” that cannot be avoided, she said.

The second is enterprises with the capabilities, energy, drive and ambition to use AI. Some will fail at it, she said, but they learn valuable lessons that help them succeed the next time. The third is people with skills, and the jobs being created as the technology develops.

The fourth is policies and programmes that give impetus and support. She cited Singapore's decision more than a decade ago to go cloud-first, which seeded a wider movement to the cloud.

The government has now committed to using AI and agents in public service delivery, while ensuring that its people are properly skilled for those roles, she said.

Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo on a tour of the new NCS AI Mission Centre on Oct 29, 2026.

THREE PARTNERSHIPS NCS also announced three memorandums of understanding with Changi Airport Group, the Institute of Mental Health and Life3 Biotech to develop and scale up AI-driven solutions.

With Changi Airport Group, NCS will enhance and scale up iFerret, a runway surveillance system that uses AI to monitor for foreign object debris. Changi Airport’s fifth terminal is set to open in the mid-2030s.

NCS chief AI officer Edward Chen said the system can detect debris as small as 4cm along a runway of about 4km. The technology has also been deployed in the Middle East and Hong Kong, he said.

At the Institute of Mental Health, one initiative being trialled is an Al-powered facial recognition system to strengthen patient identification and support timely awareness of safety considerations in inpatient care settings.

Mr Chen said the trial has involved 180 patients across four wards. Under the agreement, it will be scaled up to all 50 wards and to psychiatric wards in other hospitals, he said.