Unveils Sunshine.AI suite, forges six major technology partnerships, and builds an AI-enabled workforce of over 10,000 to catalyse transformation
SINGAPORE, July 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — In an era where AI is becoming fundamental to drive transformation, NCS today announced a S$130 million investment over three years to lead change across Asia Pacific (APAC).
NCS
At its annual flagship Impact Forum, attended by more than 1,200 leaders and technology practitioners from APAC, NCS outlined a vision where technology transcends borders, best practices are shared across diverse markets, and AI serves to advance communities rather than replace human capability.
NCS launched Sunshine.AI, a suite of AI tools and accelerators that transform how organisations develop intelligent solutions. NCS also announced strategic partnerships with leading global technology players and strengthened collaboration with research institutions, building a dynamic community of AI practitioners that elevates NCS’ AI capabilities and regional leadership.
“With AI reshaping industries as it becomes more accessible than before, we’re partnering government agencies and enterprises to help them harness the best of AI not just for efficiency gains but to advance communities,” said NCS CEO Ng Kuo Pin.
“Expanding our APAC footprint and doubling down on collaborations with technology leaders are still important in a bifurcated world. The investment we are making over the next three years and our blueprint anchored by three pillars – Intelligentisation, Internationalisation and Inspiration – will better enable our people and clients to create new business outcomes and build a resilient, innovative future with AI,” he added.
Intelligentisation: More than Digitalisation – A Blueprint for AI-Powered Transformation
Intelligentisation is a structured, holistic approach to embedding intelligence into the core of business processes, government workflows, and human experiences. This means designing AI systems not as standalone tools, but as integral components of decision-making, service delivery and operational flow. Central to this are NCS-proprietary tools, accelerators and methodologies.
From assessment to design to implementation, the NCS Sunshine suite of tools is tailored for developers, IT operations teams and corporate users. It comprises:
Sunshine.Coder, an AI coding assistant that supports language conversion, test generation, and code analysis
Sunshine.Operations, an AIOps platform designed to automate incident triage, system log analysis, and operational task flows
Sunshine.Productivity, a suite of tools that enhance day-to-day tasks such as summarisation, content retrieval, and secure document handling.
NCS’ accelerators comprise proprietary frameworks, code libraries, and deployment toolkits that mirror human cognitive functions like perception, reasoning, decision-making, and action.
This approach recognises that AI can only be as strong as a system’s digital resilience, which covers Cybersecurity, Data Backbone, Applications Interplay, Infrastructure Robustness and Operations Responsiveness. These factors ensure organisations possess the attributes necessary for sustained AI adoption.
As an example of this focus, NCS has signed a five-year Master Agreement with Singapore’s HTX to architect HTX’s foundational data core, embed intelligence such as Agentic AI into systems, adopt quantum-safe technologies, and scale robotics solutions. The collaboration will integrate and streamline data across Home Team agencies and embed next-generation intelligence into systems to enhance operational effectiveness.
In addition, Singtel Group is partnering with NCS to embed AI as a core capability across its business, using AI as a strategic driver. As Singtel’s AI-implementation arm, NCS will build solutions leveraging its comprehensive portfolio of tools, including its Sunshine.AI suite as well as Gen AI and Agentic AI assets and accelerators. Singtel and NCS will collaborate to identify, shape and realise high-impact opportunities, using AI to transform operations, customer experience and strengthen its data, AI and cloud infrastructure. This includes optimising customer value management through personalisation, streamlining processes, and building autonomous networks – all built on a foundation that enables scalable AI adoption.
“Intelligentisation means treating AI as part of the enterprise’s core nervous system, engineered with the same rigour, trust, and responsiveness demanded of mission-critical infrastructure,” explained Kuo Pin.
Internationalisation: Fragmentation – the Reason for Collaboration
As the global AI landscape fragments across technology stacks, governance models and digital ecosystems, cross-border collaboration and strong technology partners matter more than ever in delivering strong value for clients.
Regional AI Capability Expansion: In March, NCS announced a Joint Venture with the Philippines’ Globe Telecom to take a majority stake in its technology services arm Yondu. This will add 1,200 technology professionals to the NCS workforce while scaling its capabilities in Agentic AI, Data Foundation, and Data Management services. They will complement the existing 13,000-strong NCS workforce across Singapore, Australia, Greater China, India and Southeast Asia, enabling NCS to better serve its clients. Globe Telecom and NCS are also co-developing telco-centric solutions addressing unique telecommunications transformation challenges across the region.
Technology Ecosystem Partnerships: In addition, six strategic partnerships announced at Impact demonstrate how collaboration amplifies innovation across fragmented AI landscapes.
AWS: Accelerating Secure GenAI Deployment in ASEAN. NCS announced it has signed Singapore’s first multi-year GenAI Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS), enabling the rapid deployment of secure GenAI solutions that enhance efficiency, workforce enablement, and customer experience. This new SCA builds upon the NCS x AWS GenAI Centre of Excellence for Public Good initiative launched last year and enables public sector organisations to accelerate their AI initiatives from prototype to production through the expertise of 50 NCS GenAI specialists with additional expertise from the AWS Generative AI Innovation Centre.
Databricks: Developing Service Offerings for Businesses Across the Region. NCS is Databricks’ first partner in ASEAN, Australia and Greater China to develop service offerings, leveraging recently announced SAP Databricks solutions and NCS’ in-house expertise. NCS will roll out a suite of Databricks accelerators for finance, energy, and utilities sectors, enabling clients to deploy AI solutions more rapidly, reducing project risk and cost. As part of this collaboration, Databricks will also invest in upskilling NCS practitioners across the region and contribute technical expertise.
Dell Technologies: Scaling Real-World Deployments Across Asia Pacific. NCS, a Dell Global Titanium Partner, is collaborating with Dell Technologies to accelerate AI adoption across Asia Pacific by developing next-generation AI engineers. Dell has trained a significant number of NCS AI engineers and is committed to expanding that effort over the next year, backed by a multimillion-dollar investment. These engineers will help enterprises manage real-world AI workloads, including agentic and generative AI, turning ideas into scalable and production-ready solutions.
Google Cloud: Accelerating Clients’ Implementation of Applied AI+DR Solutions. NCS and Google Cloud are deepening their long-term partnership, enabling organisations to utilise interoperable, enterprise-grade generative AI and agentic AI platform services to move from AI vision to tangible, real-world value. In Singapore, NCS is the latest addition to Google Cloud’s AI Cloud Takeoff (AI CTO) programme under Digital Industry Singapore’s Enterprise Compute Initiative, serving as a certified consulting partner to help local enterprises create AI-driven intellectual property and services that boost their competitiveness and unlock new revenue opportunities. NCS and Google Cloud have established a joint AI and Digital Resilience (AI+DR) Specialist Team, dedicated to accelerating clients’ implementation of applied AI solutions.
NVIDIA: Launching Three Agentic AI Solutions. NCS has developed three agentic AI solutions on NVIDIA AI Enterprise software. NCS KAI Video Search and Summarisation Platform (KAI SnS) enables rapid extraction of insights from multiple video sources or live feeds by identifying objects, incidents, and key topics – achieving speeds up to 80x faster than the traditional review process with AI Agents. NCS Sunshine.Operations for MLOps and AIOps uses intelligent agents to automate AI operations across data, models and pipelines to enable full AI/ML lifecycle automation, scalability, faster deployments and real-time issue resolution, leading to productivity improvement. NCS AgentCanvas is a framework that accelerates agentic AI creation and deployment by translating domain expertise into functional, deployment-ready AI agents.
Sunline: Accelerating Core Banking Modernisation Across Asia. NCS will work with Sunline, China’s largest core banking solutions provider, to accelerate digital transformation in the banking sector. As Sunline’s regional services partner, NCS will manage local implementation, production support, data migration, and ongoing systems maintenance, focusing on modernising the core banking system of the region’s banks.
As AI advances, public concerns about job displacement and loss of control can also rise. Yet this presents an opportunity to design AI that augments human capability rather than replacing it, keeping humans in the centre. Inspiration is more than a theme. It is a call to business leaders to apply this powerful technology to advance communities; where people and AI evolve together, not apart.
Advancing Hyperlocal AI Ecosystem: NCS actively shapes Singapore’s broader AI landscape through collaborative initiatives that prioritise cultural relevance and ethical development. As a key industry partner to AISG’s SEA-LION, the company helps refine language models for Southeast Asian contexts while applying them within enterprise operations. As a founding member of the MERaLiON Consortium, NCS advances conversational AI use cases reflecting regional languages and operational context – from next-generation contact centres to enterprise productivity assistants.
NCS also contributes to the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s AI Verify Foundation, demonstrating its commitment to establishing internationally recognised standards for AI reliability, safety, fairness and robustness; and helping define how AI systems can be measured and trusted at scale.
Uplifting an Entire Workforce: More than 10,000 NCS employees have achieved AI enablement through comprehensive training, industry certifications, and practical implementation experience. This includes over 1,000 professionals certified across major cloud platforms including AWS, Google, Microsoft and NVIDIA – creating an AI-enabled workforce capable of guiding clients through complex transformations.
“Intelligentisation is how we harness AI, Internationalisation is who we work with, and Inspiration is why we do this — to advance communities,” said Kuo Pin. “This is central to NCS’ purpose. We partner with governments and enterprises to harness the best of AI not just for efficiency gains, but to uplift people and advance communities.”
About NCS NCS, a subsidiary of Singtel Group, is a leading technology services firm with presence in Asia Pacific which partners with governments and enterprises to advance communities through technology. Combining the experience and expertise of its 13,000-strong team across 57 specialisations, NCS provides differentiated and end-to-end technology services to clients with its NEXT capabilities in digital, data, cloud and platforms, as well as core offerings in applications, infrastructure, engineering and cybersecurity. NCS also believes in building a strong partner ecosystem with leading technology players, research institutions and start-ups to support open innovation and co-creation. For more information, visit ncs.co.
Small businesses are less confidence with AI than larger ones
Half of businesses say AI has become critical
Training and policies should be more comprehensive
New research has claimed barely one in 10 (12%) SMEs have invested in AI-related training for their staff.
The report from The Institute of Coding revealed nearly one in three (29%) SMEs now see a lack of training as their biggest obstacle to AI tools adoption, with a further one in two (52%) citing a lack of internal skills and knowledge as the main battier.
Moreover, the research depicts a troubling picture for smaller companies when compared with their larger counterparts – 82% of medium businesses expressed confidence working with AI compared with 37% of smaller businesses.
Small businesses are struggling to adopt AI
Around one in two (51%) of the SMEs surveyed agreed that AI could now be perceived as critical, but only around half of these (27%) believe they can safely and effectively implement AI tools.
As such, The Institute of Coding is warning of a growing AI readiness divide between different types of companies, launching its own free short AI courses aimed at all career levels.
Looking ahead, companies that are on the verge of being left out by the AI revolution are now calling for greater support from the government.
Three in five (59%) call for national AI skills strategies to support businesses of all sizes, with three-quarters asking for clearer guidance on the AI skills they’re likely to need in the next three to five years.
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“This isn’t just about individual business success – it’s about ensuring the entire UK economy can participate in the AI transformation,” Professor Rachid Hourizi MBE, Director of the Institute of Coding, explained.
The report goes on to explain that, if micro businesses and sole traders are not explicitly included in national plans, AI will become concentrated, not democratized.
Apple’s top AI leader, Ruoming Pang, is leaving for Meta with a multi-million dollar salary offer.
Pang led a large team working on AI models powering Siri and other Apple features.
Several other Apple AI engineers are expected to follow him to Meta or other companies.
Meta is investing heavily in AI and aggressively hiring top talent to compete with rivals.
Apple has lost one of its top artificial intelligence (AI) executives, Ruoming Pang, who led the company’s important AI models team. He is now joining Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Ruoming Pang was a key engineer managing Apple’s foundation models, which help power many AI features in Apple devices, such as Siri and Apple Intelligence. He joined Apple in 2021 from Google’s parent company, Alphabet. Now, Meta has offered him a very attractive salary package worth tens of millions of dollars per year, which led to his decision to leave Apple.
This move highlights the fierce competition among big tech companies like Apple, Meta, Google, and OpenAI to hire the best AI talent. Meta has been aggressively recruiting AI experts recently, including people from OpenAI and other startups, to build advanced AI systems they call “superintelligence.”
At Apple, Ruoming Pang was in charge of a team of about 100 people working on large language models — the technology behind many AI-powered apps. Recently, Apple announced it would open these models for third-party app developers to create new AI-based iPhone and iPad apps.
However, Apple’s AI team has been facing challenges and internal changes. Some engineers are reportedly planning to leave, and the company is considering using AI technology from outside companies like OpenAI or Anthropic to improve Siri, its voice assistant.
Apple’s AI efforts have also seen leadership changes, with some teams moving away from Ruoming Pang’s group. Now, Zhifeng Chen will lead the foundation models team, with a new structure of managers to help run the work.
Apple is still investing heavily in AI, with top executives like Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell focusing on new AI features. But losing a top leader like Pang shows how competitive and difficult it is for Apple to keep pace in the fast-moving AI field.
Meta, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is spending billions on AI and making it a top priority. Zuckerberg has personally been involved in recruiting top AI engineers to build the future of AI at Meta.
In summary, Apple’s loss of Ruoming Pang to Meta is a major sign of the ongoing “war for AI talent” among tech giants. It remains to be seen how Apple will respond and strengthen its AI efforts going forward.
