The Monetary Authority of Singapore is to commit $100 million in grant funding to support the development of AI and quantum computing technologies in the financial sector.

The quantum technology funding, enabled under the central bank’s Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Grant Scheme, will provide cash support for the development of technology centres and innovation.

The funding scheme will also supply cash grants for experimentation and development of quantum technology-related pilots that explore the use of Post-quantum Cryptography (PQC) and Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) to safeguard firms’ critical data.

On the AI front, MAS will support financial institutions in establishing AI innovation centres in Singapore for a range of functions including: AI model building and training, deployment of AI models for high-impact use cases, governance and risk management, as well as testing and monitoring.

The central bank has additionaly invested in a collaborative programme with the private sector to develop frameworks and platforms for policies and protocols that enable privacy-protected data exchange on industry-wide use cases.

The central bank has identified scam and fraud detection as a use case for the first pilot project, and says it will work with banks, technology solution providers and public agencies on this.