KPMG Launches Trusted AI Centre of Excellence to Strengthen Singapore's Position as a Globally Trusted AI Hub
As Singapore deepens its commitment to
becoming a world-leading AI hub, the question of how organisations build AI
that is trusted — by customers, regulators and international partners — has
become as consequential as how fast they build it. KPMG took a significant step
in answering that question with the launch of its Trusted Artificial
Intelligence Centre of Excellence (AI CoE). Supported by the Singapore Economic
Development Board (EDB), the AI CoE is a dedicated capability hub designed to
help organisations move beyond AI experimentation and embed AI as a trusted,
enterprise-ready asset.
At the same event, KPMG also unveiled its Trusted AI Assurance — a structured,
business-focused, evidence-based approach that gives Singapore businesses a
rigorous, multi-faceted assessment of their AI deployment and a clear pathway
to scale confidently. Today's launch — bringing together government, enterprise
and the professional services sector — signals a pivotal shift in the national
AI conversation: from speed to scale of adoption where trust is the
foundational bedrock of deploying AI.
The Trusted AI CoE was officially launched by Ms Jasmin Lau, Minister of State,
Ministry of Digital Development and Information & Ministry of Education,
alongside Mr Jermaine Loy, Managing Director of the Singapore Economic
Development Board (EDB), and Ms Lee Sze Yeng, Managing Partner of KPMG in
Singapore.
KPMG's 2025 Global CEO Outlook shows
that more than seven in ten CEOs now rank AI as a top investment priority — yet
for many, the gap between ambition and sustained enterprise impact remains
wide. Governance, data readiness and workforce capability are the defining
constraints of this next phase of adoption. Singapore-based businesses face a
further dimension: as they expand regionally and globally, they need their AI
systems to be trusted not just at home but across multiple jurisdictions — each
with its own regulatory expectations and stakeholder standards.
Lee Sze Yeng, Managing Partner at KPMG in Singapore, said: "Across every
sector, we are seeing the same pattern: organisations that moved fast on AI are
now asking harder questions — where is the real value, are our people genuinely
ready to work alongside AI, and can we stand behind the decisions our systems
make? These are not technical questions. They are leadership questions. And for
Singapore businesses with ambitions beyond our shores, there is an added
dimension: the trust that matters to customers and regulators in the markets
you are entering may be defined differently from what is required here. Through
the KPMG Singapore Trusted AI Centre of Excellence, we are partnering with
businesses to rigorously assess where they stand, close the gaps that matter,
and build AI that is trusted not just locally but in the markets most critical
to their growth. Trusted AI is not a constraint on ambition. Done well, it is
the foundation for it."
Jermaine Loy, Managing Director, EDB, said: "KPMG's Trusted AI Centre of
Excellence here in Singapore will enable businesses across diverse sectors -
including financial services, healthcare, logistics and manufacturing - to
scale use of AI with confidence, supported by robust governance frameworks and
assurance capabilities. At the same time, this strengthens Singapore's growing
AI ecosystem by building enterprise capabilities and workforce readiness for AI
adoption. We welcome KPMG Singapore's efforts to work with EDB and the relevant
agencies in advancing Singapore's position as a globally trusted hub for AI
deployment and innovation."
Trusted
AI Assurance — Giving Singapore Businesses a Foundation to Scale AI
For
Singapore businesses, the ambition to scale AI is rarely the obstacle. What is
harder — and more consequential — is the question of whether the AI they are
building and deploying can genuinely be stood behind: by their boards, by their
customers, employees and by the regulators and partners they will encounter as
they grow beyond Singapore's shores.
KPMG's Trusted AI Assurance offering (the "Trusted AI Assurance") was
developed in response to the need to address the trust deficit with AI in the
business community to boost adoption. It is not a certification exercise or a
compliance checklist. It is a rigorous, evidence-based independent assessment
that gives leadership teams an honest picture of where they stand — and a
clear, practical path to where they need to be.
What makes it meaningful is its specificity. The Trusted AI Assurance is
calibrated to each organisation's sector, operating context and growth
ambitions — because a financial institution navigating cross-border data
regulation faces a fundamentally different set of questions from a manufacturer
embedding AI into operational workflows, or a healthcare provider deploying
AI-assisted diagnostics. Generic benchmarks serve neither well.
The assessment examines two things that are often conflated but must be
considered separately: whether an organisation has the governance, culture and
leadership practices to deploy AI responsibly; and whether the AI solutions it
has built or acquired are themselves trustworthy — documented, risk-assessed,
well-integrated and performing as intended. An organisation can have the right
intentions and still be running AI that falls short of what its stakeholders —
or another country's regulators — would accept.
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