Singtel teams up with Bridge Alliance to offer GPU as a Service in Southeast Asia

AIS, Maxis and Telkomsel will be the first telcos to offer the service in their markets

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Singapore, 19 August 2024 - Singtel, a leading communications technology group in Asia, and Bridge Alliance, a leading mobile alliance of 35 member operators worldwide, today announced a strategic partnership that will bring Singtel's GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) offerings to enterprises across the region. Southeast Asia's leading telcos AIS, Maxis and Telkomsel are among the alliance's early adopters to cater to the growing demand for AI computing in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia respectively, having signalled their interest in the service.

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This tie-up follows Singtel's announcement in February on the launch of its GPUaaS later this year, which will provide enterprises with access to NVIDIA's AI computing power so they can deploy AI at scale quickly and cost effectively to accelerate growth and innovation.

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AI adoption could contribute nearly US$1 trillion to the Southeast Asian economy by 2030 if the transformative power of the technology can be unlocked to deliver value^[1]. Recognising the importance of AI, regional governments have launched national AI roadmaps to harness the technology responsibly and to its fullest potential.

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As part of the agreement, Bridge Alliance member operators (BMOs) will get access to the GPUaaS offerings from Singtel. As the GPU needs expand in these countries, more GPU clusters will be launched into the respective countries to accelerate and scale the businesses. Bridge Alliance will assist BMOs in fast-tracking their go-to-market strategies and effectively drive the success of the GPUaaS offerings with the enterprises.

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Mr Bill Chang, CEO of Singtel's Digital InfraCo unit, said, "We are very heartened to see such strong interest from AIS, Maxis and Telkomsel to partner us in our GPUaaS offerings. Our collaboration with Bridge Alliance and telcos in the region will help democratise and accelerate the use of AI by enterprises across all industries, giving them the tools to achieve greater productivity and business value with our next-generation digital infrastructure and solutions. This reinforces our goal of being a catalyst for innovation and supporting the digital transformation of Southeast Asia's digital economies."

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Through Singtel's patented Paragon platform, Singtel was the first telco to bring AI to the 5G edge in the 5G@Sentosa trials for Singapore government agencies. Paragon orchestrated a multi-edge compute and NVIDIA GPU environment while enabling customers to deploy 5G use cases at speed and at scale. "With more telcos deploying 5G network services, we see this real-time AI offering powered by GPUaaS at 5G edge at low latencies as a key growth driver for their enterprise businesses," Mr Chang added.

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Dr Ong Geok Chwee, CEO of Bridge Alliance, said, "As a leading mobile alliance which pools the collective capabilities of our BMOs together to deliver regional initiatives, we're delighted to bring the benefits of GPUaaS and AI computing to enterprise customers in the markets where our BMOs operate. Through our extensive coverage and ability to integrate services across multiple markets, this initiative once again validates the value of the Bridge Alliance ecosystem as a preferred solution partner in driving optimisation and innovation, especially for companies with multinational operations."

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Mr Phupa Akavipat, acting Chief Enterprise Business Officer of AIS, said "AI technology has been rapidly and widely adopted by various industries to enhance and accelerate their business transformation. Providing AI with Cloud 'GPU as-a-Service' model will enable them to embrace the technology efficiently and scalably. AIS strongly believes that the GPUaaS by Singtel and Bridge Alliance with AIS capability will co-create sustainable digital economy value to be captured by businesses in Thailand."

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Mr Goh Seow Eng, CEO of Maxis, said, "We look forward to being the first telco to bring GPUaaS to businesses here in Malaysia. This offering will provide a cost-efficient way for businesses to access high-performance computing and data processing capabilities. They will also have the flexibility to scale their resources on-demand for more complex workloads such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, 3D modelling and large-scale analytics. As Malaysia's leading integrated telco, we will continue to make it simpler for customers to leverage the best of connectivity and digital solutions, so they can focus on growing their business."

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Mr Wong Soon Nam, Director Planning and Transformation at Telkomsel said, "This collaboration enables Indonesian enterprises to accelerate their AI adoption with ease, leveraging cutting-edge infrastructure that ensures both scalability and cost efficiency. By providing a one-stop platform across multiple markets, we offer businesses the flexibility to harness AI optimised by our latest 5G broadband connectivity for a wide range of use cases - whether it's optimising operations with route planning, enhancing customer experience through product recommendations, strengthening security with fraud detection, or improving decision-making through advanced video analytics - all without the need for upfront investments. This reinforces our commitment to drive Indonesia's digital transformation and empowering its digital economy." 

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At launch, Singtel's GPUaaS will be powered by NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU-powered clusters. Singtel will also be among the world's first to launch NVIDIA's next-generation GB200 AI Servers. The service will be expanded to run in new sustainable, hyper-connected, AI-ready data centres by Nxera, Singtel's regional data centre business, across Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia when they begin operations from mid-2025 onwards.

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^[1] Racing toward the future: artificial intelligence in Southeast Asia, Kearney

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