Two countries partner to leverage AI for cybersecurity

France's Ministry of the Armed Forces (MOAF) and Singapore's Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) will partner to develop AI capabilities that can be used in cybersecurity solutions.

France and Singapore agreed to help each other out to develop artificial intelligence capabilities and use them in the cybersecurity field. The countries will establish a Joint Research & Development Laboratory (Joint Lab). The agreement was signed on April 19 by Mr. Chan Heng Kee, MINDEF's Permanent Secretary (Defence), and Dr. Emmanuel Chiva, Chief Executive of the French Directorate General of Armaments.

The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Temasek Laboratories @ National University of Singapore will lead the research lab, and the team will work on geospatial analysis, natural language processing, and computer vision to monitor image and video feeds for potential threats across varied environmental conditions.

"Digital and dual-use technologies like AI are rapidly evolving today. MINDEF is expanding our partnerships and networks to utilize these new sources of innovation for defense applications. With the establishment of the Joint Lab, we are deepening our partnership with France. By bringing together leading researchers in Singapore and France, we can accelerate our research to tackle shared security challenges," said Mr. Chan Heng Kee, MINDEF's Permanent Secretary (Defence).

CNRS is one of the largest scientific research organizations in the world

The lab will be located in Singapore. French and Singaporean researchers will work together to conduct research that both countries could benefit from in the future. CNRS is the second largest scientific research organization in the world with 32,000 staff and 1,000 labs and they will be working closely with Singaporean researchers under the SAFARI (Singapore and France Advanced Research Initiative) cooperation.

"CNRS' participation in the joint lab builds on its existing strong collaborations in the field of AI, both with academic partners in Singapore, as well as with the Defence Innovation Agency in France. The joint lab will make it possible to explore new research directions, in collaboration with Singaporean partners, focusing on AI topics that have a strong potential for defense applications," said Mr. Antoine Petit, Chairman and CEO of CNRS.

Artificial intelligence has become one of the hottest topics in the technology world. Companies and even companies are working hard to succeed in the field to benefit from its capabilities and such. OpenAI's incredible success over the past few years pushed several others to invest in the field, including Microsoft, which is investing heavily in OpenAI.

It could bring huge risks for companies and also countries, but it could also be used to take precautions. The partnership between Singapore and France mainly relies on these two aspects, and if they see results in a short amount of time, we might see this partnership grow in the future.

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