Singapore – Singapore is channelling approximately US$4.3 million (about S$5.6 million) into homegrown tools to defend against AI-enabled and quantum threats, as the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) works to strengthen the country’s cyber resilience.
The Minister of State for Digital Development and Information, Rahayu Mahzam, highlighted the developments at the event. CSA says the moves support the Singapore Cybersecurity Strategy 2026, which aims to build globally competitive and trusted capabilities, particularly for critical information infrastructure (CII).
The funded projects focus on emerging threats that could test those systems. They include an AI-powered platform for the early identification and analysis of AI-enabled risks and an agentic AI framework for cyber threat attribution in operational technology (OT) environments.
Another project is a quantum-safe red-teaming solution that assesses organisations’ exposure to quantum threats. Together, the projects address both the AI and quantum risks the strategy identifies.
Protecting the systems that underpin essential services is a recurring theme. ST Engineering D’Crypt is developing a quantum-ready encryptor for supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, designed to safeguard CII and OT environments from malicious commands.
Securing AI itself is another priority. CloudsineAI is developing a threat attack graph platform for multi-agent AI systems, while Flexxon is building an MCP-native security gateway for communications between AI agents and tools.
Flexxon says it aims for over 95 per cent threat detection with sub-5ms latency. It also targets support for more than 10,000 requests per second at production scale.
The programme also looks beyond large organisations. StrongKeep Cybersecurity, working with A*STAR, is developing an agentic AI system designed to perform the core work of a chief information security officer for companies without one.
The other awardees are Amaris.AI, BlackScore, Ensign InfoSecurity, IdentityPlane, ISTARI Global (Singapore), Protos Labs, Silence Laboratories, and Veridic. Their projects span threat intelligence, cryptocurrency investigations, crisis exercising, identity governance and privacy-enhancing technologies.
CSA says a key priority is to strengthen the links between research, solution development and industry adoption. The aim is for promising innovations to become capabilities that address real-world challenges.
CyberCall is run through the Talent, Innovation and Growth Collaboration Centre (TIG Centre), which the National University of Singapore’s NUSX manages. The centre says it has supported more than 120 companies since its establishment in 2023.
CyberCall 2026 widens the scope through two categories. The Open Call category covers priority areas including cybersecurity for AI systems, AI for cybersecurity, quantum-safe technology, OT and Internet-of-Things (IoT) security, cloud security and privacy-enhancing technologies.
The User-Driven category sets specific challenges for end users such as CSA and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. Solutions should also be adoptable by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Those challenges include an autonomous detection and incident response tool for fast-moving cyber intrusions. They also include a way to verify Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) messages and detect spoofed, forged or unauthorised transmissions without affecting aviation operations.
Support for the wider ecosystem is also growing. The TIG Centre has relaunched its cybersecurity catalogue as CyberSG Atlas, which lists solutions and services from more than 200 Singapore-based cybersecurity companies and categorises them using the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
A new AI-powered chatbot helps businesses identify cybersecurity solutions and find guidance during a cyber incident.
The TIG Centre has also convened the CyberSG CISO Advisory Committee, which brings together senior cybersecurity leaders from CII sectors, government agencies, academia and industry. The committee will offer perspectives on pressing challenges, barriers to technology adoption and emerging capability gaps.
On the research side, the CyberSG R&D Programme Office (CRPO), established by CSA with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), has awarded approximately US$31 million (about S$40 million) or more in research grants since 2023. The grants cover 23 projects in areas such as 5G/6G telecommunications security, post-quantum cryptography, agentic AI and CII protection.
