Singapore Pledges S$30M To Boost ASEAN Cybersecurity
By Anas Abu Hassan
SINGAPORE, Oct 14 (Bernama) -- Singapore has announced a further commitment of S$30 million over five years to strengthen regional cybersecurity capacity-building efforts through the ASEAN-Singapore Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence (ASCCE).
Minister for Digital Development and Information and Minister-in-charge of Cybersecurity and the Smart Nation Group, Josephine Teo said the new commitment builds on the S$30 million (RM95.7 million) Singapore had committed to regional cybersecurity capacity building over the past eight years.
Teo said the investment will support efforts to build cybersecurity capabilities and strengthen cooperation across ASEAN as the region faces increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and growing digital interconnectedness amid advances in artificial intelligence (AI).
“The ASCCE’s next phase will go deeper to prepare participants for incident response, critical infrastructure protection, AI-related cyber risks and cyber diplomacy.
“It will also work with industry and academia to meet ASEAN's evolving needs,” she said at the opening of the ASEAN Ministerial Conference on Cybersecurity 2026 on the sidelines of the Singapore International Cyber Week (SICW) 2026 on Wednesday.
According to Teo, cybersecurity capacity building is essential to ASEAN’s digitalisation agenda as the public and businesses will embrace digital services only if they trust the systems.
“Sustaining that trust requires stronger cyber capabilities across our region and Singapore’s contribution builds on ASEAN’s existing mechanisms," she added.
Since ASCCE’s establishment in 2019, Singapore has worked with more than 40 partners, including ASEAN Dialogue Partners and international organisations to deliver cybersecurity capacity-building programmes benefiting over 2,200 participants from ASEAN and beyond.
-- BERNAMA
