Singapore leads Asia in AI maturity but scaling gaps remain

About 40% of Singapore firms reach integration stage, while only 3% achieve AI leadership.

Singapore stands out in Asia’s AI readiness landscape, with 40% of organisations reaching the “Integrator” stage of AI maturity, however, only 3% have achieved “Leader” status, according to a study by ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC).

The findings come from “Mind the Gap: Bridging the AI Infrastructure Readiness Divide,” a regional survey of more than 600 enterprise and digital-native leaders across nine Asian markets, including Singapore, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

In Singapore, the study found that the constraints have shifted from adoption to scaling, with limited infrastructure headroom, shortages in specialised operational expertise and continued investment discipline identified as key barriers to expansion of AI workloads.

“Whether the country can maintain its lead in the region will depend on whether infrastructure capacity, specialist expertise and investment approaches can evolve at the same pace as AI workloads,” said Mingcheng Lim, country head for Singapore at ST Telemedia Global Data Centres.

The study found that across Asia, 71% of organisations remain in the “Builder” stage, where AI pilots struggle to scale into production environments.

Only 17% are considered “future ready,” defined as having scalable infrastructure, mature data governance and operational expertise.

STT GDC said the findings indicate that whilst AI adoption is widespread across the region, many organisations continue to face challenges in moving from experimentation to scaled deployment.

“Across Asia, organisations are moving quickly from experimentation to implementation, but many are discovering that AI success now depends less on training models and more on foundations,” said Chris Street, group chief revenue officer at ST Telemedia Global Data Centres.

He added that without scalable infrastructure and operational readiness, organisations struggle to convert early AI work into business value.

The report also found that sustainability considerations remain secondary for most organisations in infrastructure decisions, despite rising energy and cooling demands from AI workloads.

Across Asia, 64% of organisations prioritise performance or cost over ESG goals, whilst 27% say sustainability objectives will shape future infrastructure plans.

STT GDC said organisations in Singapore continue to prioritise baseline criteria such as security and reliability when selecting infrastructure providers, even as their main challenges increasingly relate to scalability and specialist expertise.

The study suggests that Asia’s next phase of AI development will depend on execution capability rather than adoption rates, according to STT GDC.

Source: SBR