New Singapore-UK Agreement to strengthen global AI safety and governance
28 November 2024
On 6 November 2024, the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (“MDDI”) announced that Singapore and the UK had signed a new Memorandum of Cooperation to enhance the safety and reliability of artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies in its development and use (“MoC”). The MoC, titled the Memorandum of Cooperation on Collaboration on the Safety of Artificial Intelligence, was signed by Minister for Digital Development and Information, Josephine Teo, and UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology, Peter Kyle.
The MoC aligns with the commitments made by Singapore and the UK at the AI Safety Summit held in the UK in November 2023 and the objectives of the international network of AI Safety Institutes to align their work on research, standards, and testing. It also builds on the Memorandum of Understanding on Emerging Technologies signed by both countries in 2023, which included commitments to explore cooperation on AI.
The new MoC will strengthen cooperation between the AI Safety Institutes of both countries. Key areas of collaboration include:
- AI safety research: Enhancing joint efforts to advance the science of AI safety, focusing on developing safer AI systems and risk management.
- Global norms: Collaborating on international AI safety standards and protocols, including through possible cooperation with the Network of AI Safety Institutes, ensuring a global approach to AI risk mitigation.
- Information sharing: Expanding knowledge exchange between the two countries’ AI Safety Institutes to ensure that AI systems are developed and deployed in ways that are trustworthy and safe for global use.
- Comprehensive AI testing: Joint development of safety testing frameworks that provide robust evaluations throughout the AI lifecycle.
Reference materials
The MDDI press release on this development is available on the MDDI website www.mddi.gov.sg.