As governments deliberate on whether artificial intelligence poses risks or dangers and whether it needs regulating, Singapore is taking more of a wait-and-see approach.
“We are currently not looking at regulating AI,” Lee Wan Sie, director for trusted AI and data at Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority, told CNBC. IMDA promotes and regulates Singapore’s communication and media sectors.
The Singapore government is making efforts to promote the responsible use of AI.
It is calling for companies to collaborate in the world’s first AI testing toolkit — called AI Verify — that enables users to conduct technical tests on their AI models and record process checks.
We will learn how AI is being used before we decide if more needs to be done from a regulatory front.
Lee Wan Sie
Director for trusted AI & data, IMDA
AI Verify was launched as a pilot project in 2022. Tech giant IBM and Singapore Airlines have already started pilot testing as part of the program.
Calls for regulation
In recent months, AI buzz has gathered pace after chatbot ChatGPT went viral for its ability to generate humanlike responses to users’ prompts. It hit 100 million users in just two months after its launch.
Globally, there have been repeated calls for government interventions to address the potential risks of AI, however.
“At this stage, it is quite clear that we want to be able to learn from the industry. We will learn how AI is being used before we decide if more needs to be done from a regulatory front,” said Lee, adding that regulation may be introduced at a later stage.
“We recognize that as a small country, as the government, we may not have all the answers to this. So it’s very important that we work closely with the industry, research organizations and other governments,” said Lee.
Haniyeh Mahmoudian, an AI ethicist at DataRobot and an advisory member of the U.S. National AI Advisory Committee, said “it really benefits” both businesses and policymakers.
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“The industry is more hands-on when it comes to AI. Sometimes when it comes to regulations, you see the gap between what the policymakers are thinking about AI versus what’s actually happening in the business,” said Mahmoudian.
“So having this type of collaboration specifically creating these types of toolkits has the input from the industry. It really benefits both sides,” she added.
Google, Microsoft and IBM are among tech giants which have already joined the AI Verify Foundation — a global open-source community set up to discuss AI standards and best practices, as well as collaborate on governing AI.
“We at Microsoft applaud the Singapore government’s leadership in this area,” said Brad Smith, president and vice chair at Microsoft, in a press release.
“By creating practical resources like the AI governance testing framework and toolkit, Singapore is helping organizations build robust governance and testing processes,” said Smith.
Collaborative approach
France’s President Emmanuel Macron and his ministers have expressed a need for AI regulation. “I think we do need a regulation and all the players, even the U.S. players, agree with that,” Macron told CNBC last week.
China has already developed draft rules designed to manage how companies develop generative AI products like ChatGPT.
Innovation in a safe environment
Singapore could act as a “steward” in the region for allowing innovation but in a safe environment, said Stella Cramer, APAC head of international law firm Clifford Chance’s tech group.
Clifford Chance works with regulators on guidelines and frameworks across a range of markets.
Singapore has really sort of positioned itself as almost like the steward in the region of responsible and trustworthy use of AI.
Stella Cramer
APAC head of international law firm Clifford Chance’s tech group
“There’s just this consistent approach that we’re seeing around openness and collaboration. Singapore is viewed as a jurisdiction that is a safe place to come and test and roll out your technology with the support of the regulators in a controlled environment,” said Cramer.
The city-state has launched several pilot projects such as the FinTech Regulatory Sandbox or healthtech sandbox for industry players to test out their products in a live environment before going to market.
“These structured frameworks and testing toolkits will help guide AI governance policies to promote safe and trustworthy AI for businesses,” said Cramer.
“AI Verify may potentially be useful for demonstration of compliance to certain requirements,” said IMDA’s Lee. “At the end, as a regulator, if I want to enforce [regulation], I must know how to do it.”
Against a volatile market backdrop, the software maker’s stock has gained 45% and is the best performer among companies valued at $5 billion or more, according to FactSet. The closest tech names are VeriSign, up 33%, Okta, up 30%, Robinhood, up 29%, and Uber, up 29%.
“When you think about macroeconomic concerns, you as a company need to be more efficient, and this is where Palantir thrives,” said Bank of America analyst Mariana Pérez Mora.
Palantir has set itself apart in the software world for its artificial-intelligence-enabled tools, gaining recognition for its defense and software contracts with key U.S. government agencies, including the military. In the fourth quarter, its government revenues jumped 45% year-over-year to $343 million.
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Companies have faced immense volatility in 2025 as tariffs threaten to jeopardize global supply chains and halt day-to-day manufacturing operations by hiking costs. Those fears have brought the broad market index down about 7% this year, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has slumped 11%.
At the same time, the Trump administration has clamped down on government spending, giving Tesla CEO Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency freedom to slash public sector costs. Some administration officials have touted shifting dollars from consulting contracts to commercial software providers like Palantir, said William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma.
“Palantir’s business model is highly aligned with the priorities of the Trump administration in terms of increasing agility and being very quick to market,” he said.
That’s put Palantir in the league with major contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which have outperformed in this year’s downdraft. Many companies in the space are also looking to partner with the firm and tend to flock to defense during recessionary times, DiPalma said.
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Palantir vs. the Nasdaq Composite
CEO Alex Karp has also been a vocal supporter of American innovation and the company’s central role in helping prop up what he called the “single best tech scene in the world” during an interview with CNBC earlier this year. Karp also told CNBC that the U.S. needs an “all-country effort” to compete against emerging adversaries.
But the ride for Palantir has been far from smooth, and shares have been susceptible to volatile swings. Shares sold off nearly 14% during the week that Trump first announced tariffs. Shares rocketed 22% one day in February on strong earnings.
Its inclusion in more passive and quant funds over the years and the growing attention of retail traders has added to that turbulence, DiPalma said. Last year, the company joined both the S&P and Nasdaq. Palantir trades at one of the highest price-to-earnings multiples in software and last traded at 185 times earnings over the next twelve months. That puts a steep bar on the stock.
Kurt Sievers, chief executive officer of NXP Semiconductors NV, during the Federation of German Industries (BDI) conference in Berlin, Germany, on Monday, June 19, 2023.
NXP Semiconductor Inc. fell about 8% on Monday after the chip company announced that CEO Kurt Sievers will step down as part of its latest earnings.
Here’s how the company did, versus LSEG consensus estimates:
Earnings per share: $2.64 adjusted vs. $2.58 expected
Revenue: $2.84 billion vs. $2.83 billion expected
Sievers will retire at the end of the year, with Rafael Sotomayor stepping in as president on April 28, 2025.
The company beat expectations on the top and bottom lines but cited a “challenging set of market conditions” looking forward.
“We are operating in a very uncertain environment influenced by tariffs with volatile direct and indirect effects,” Sievers said in an earnings release.
Sales in NXP’s first quarter declined 9% year over year.
The company posted $1.67 billion in auto sales during the first quarter, trailing analyst estimates of $1.69 billion.
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NXP Semi said that second-quarter sales would come in at a midpoint of $2.9 billion, ahead of the $2.87 billion that analysts were projecting. Second-quarter adjusted EPS will be $2.66, in line with analyst estimates.
The company logged first-quarter net income of $490 million, which was a 23% year-to-year drop from $639 million.
NXP’s net income per share was $1.92 compared to $2.47 during the same time a year ago. A drop of 22%.
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Microsoft President Brad Smith speaks during signing ceremony of cooperation agreement between the Polish Ministry of Defence and Microsoft, in Warsaw, Poland, February 17, 2025.
Kacper Pempel | Reuters
The U.S. cannot afford to fall behind China in the race to a working quantum computer, Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote Monday.
President Donald Trump and the U.S. government need to prioritize funding for quantum research, or China could surpass the U.S., endangering economic competitiveness and security, Smith wrote.
“While most believe that the United States still holds the lead position, we cannot afford to rule out the possibility of a strategic surprise or that China may already be at parity with the United States,” Smith wrote. “Simply put, the United States cannot afford to fall behind, or worse, lose the race entirely.”
Microsoft’s position is the latest sign that research into quantum computing is starting to heat up among big tech companies and investors who are looking for the next technology that could rival the artificial intelligence boom.
Smith is calling for the Trump administration to increase funding for quantum research, renew the National Quantum Initiative Act and expand a program for testing quantum computers by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. The Microsoft executive is also calling on the White House to expand the educational pipeline of people who have the math and science skills to work on quantum machines, fast-track immigration for Ph.D.s with quantum skills and for the government to buy more quantum-related computer parts to build a U.S. supply chain.
Microsoft did not detail how China surpassing the U.S. in quantum computing technology would endanger national security, but a National Security Agency official last year discussed what could happen if China or another adversary surprised the U.S. by building a quantum computer first.
The official, NSA Director of Research Gil Herrera, said that if such a “black swan” event happened, banks might not be able to keep transactions private because a quantum computer could crack their encryption, according to the Washington Times. A working quantum computer could also crack existing encrypted data that is usually shared publicly in a scrambled fashion, which could reveal secrets on U.S. nuclear weapon systems.
In February, Microsoft announced its latest quantum chip called Majorana, claiming that it invented a new kind of matter to develop the prototype device. Last year, Google announced Willow, a new device the company claimed was a “milestone” because it was able to correct errors and solve a math problem in five minutes that would have taken longer than the age of the universe on a traditional computer.
While the computers people are used to use bits that are either 0 or 1 to do calculations, quantum computers use “qubits,” which end up being on or off based on probability. Experts say that quantum computers will eventually be useful for problems with nearly infinite possibilities, such as simulating chemistry, or routing deliveries.
But the current quantum computers are far away from that point, and many computer industry participants say it could take decades for quantum computers to reach their potential.
Microsoft’s chip, Majorana, has eight qubits, but the company says it has a goal of least 1 million qubits for a commercially useful chip. Microsoft needs to build a device with a few hundred qubits before the company starts looking at whether it’s reliable enough for customers.