Singapore AI News & Daily Briefing

Singapore's financial regulators are rolling out safeguards for AI systems that make autonomous decisions in banking and trading. New guidelines require transparency, human oversight checkpoints, and stress-testing of AI decision-making in financial markets to prevent algorithmic failures or biases from disrupting the financial system.

Microsoft is funneling $2.5 billion into a new unit called Frontier Company, designed to help big businesses deploy multiple AI models while keeping their intellectual property safe. The entity will focus on implementation, security, and AI governance for enterprise clients.

This article is crossposted from IEEE Spectrum ’s careers newsletter. Sign up now to get insider tips, expert advice, and practical strategies, written i n partnership with tech career development company Parsity and delivered to your inbox for free! You want to become a senior developer. A CTO, maybe. Start your own company, perhaps. Or maybe you just want to land your first role in tech. You will not get there from raw engineering skill alone. There’s a skill that’s quietly essential to technical leadership and yet consistently overlooked: public speaking. If you’re anything like I used to be, you’re already listing reasons not to. “I got into this to code, not to give presentations.” “I don’t want to lead.” “I’m too junior to speak about anything.” No, no, and no again. There’s a ceilin

Nestlé is pouring $688 million into an AI-powered smart factory in Samut Prakan, Thailand, creating over 520 jobs for local engineers. The facility will churn out 170,000 metric tons of NESCAFÉ products annually using robots and AI systems. It will source $130 million worth of local ingredients yearly, including coffee beans and fresh milk, and help train Thai farmers in sustainable practices. Operations start Q4 2028.

OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Work, a new AI agent feature that can independently handle multi-step tasks like building spreadsheets, creating presentations, and developing web apps while users are away. It's powered by the new GPT-5.6 model family. The company is targeting APAC businesses with this launch, positioning it as the biggest change to ChatGPT since its original release. A unified desktop app and new integrations with tools like Slack, Gmail, and Google Drive are also part of the rollout.

Singapore's youth robotics championship is expanding, giving more students hands-on experience with AI and robotics. The contest now covers a wider range of age groups and skill levels, making AI education more accessible to young Singaporeans outside traditional academic tracks.

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Apple has sued OpenAI, alleging that OpenAI employees formerly at Apple stole Apple's trade secrets to build the AI startup's hardware plans. The lawsuit also names IO Products, Jony Ive's hardware startup. This escalates the legal battles between major tech players as AI competition intensifies.

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Meta has shut down an AI feature on Instagram that generated images using users' public posts, days after launching it. Users complained the feature didn't give them enough control over how their content was used to train or power AI image generation. Meta admitted the feature 'missed the mark' and is now gone. This shows how quickly AI products can get pulled when people object to how their data fuels the technology.

Psychologist Dr Clare Sutherland is holding up two large photos. One shows the face of an Australian academic leading an international research study; the other is an AI-generated deepfake. Artificial intelligence has become so adept at creating realistic images, it is increasingly hard to figure out what is real or not. But can people be trained to spot an image of a human that has actually been created by a machine? That's a question Sutherland, from the University of Aberdeen, and her Australian colleague have been examining. But before we reveal the answer, have a go at this test - and note down your score. If you found that tough, you are not alone. It used to be far easier to spot computer-generated visual creations - often used by fraudsters - because AI would make blunders, like ad

 **Image Credits:**Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto / Getty Images 4:55 PM PDT · July 10, 2026 Meta has axed a controversial feature that allowed users to modify photos from public Instagram accounts using AI. The feature, which was rolled out earlier this week along with a batch of other AI tools, “missed the mark” and is no longer available, according to the company. Earlier this week, Meta [announced](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/07/meta-rolls-out-muse-a-new-ai-image-generator/) Muse Image, a new AI image generator built by its dedicated AI unit known as Meta Superintelligence Labs. Meta promoted one feature that allowed individuals to generate images by @-mentioning public Instagram accounts

Meta has pulled an AI feature on Instagram that let users generate images using photos from any public account just by @-mentioning them. The feature, launched earlier this week, sparked immediate backlash over consent concerns and potential for abuse (like creating deepfakes). Meta admitted it "missed the mark" and removed it within days. Users can still opt out of having their public content used for AI reference.

Fake AI-generated images of World Cup fans are flooding X (formerly Twitter), and thousands of users are falling for them. These include made-up kissing scenes between fans and fabricated scenarios that never happened. Commenters take the posts at face value, not realizing the images are AI-created. It's a vivid reminder that what you see on social media may not be real — and AI has made it incredibly easy to create convincing fake visuals.

_Welcome to Tech in Asia’s free Saturday VC newsletter! Get full access to our subscribers-only premium content and other insightful analysis on the big and messy topics of Asia’s tech and startup community by [registering here.](https://techinasia.com/subscription?utm\_source=web&utm\_medium=article&utm\_campaign=dailynewsletter)_ Hello reader, Who doesn’t love a good garage startup story? There’s something exciting about the idea that a big company can begin with just a couple of founders and their laptops, a humble home garage, and cheap meals fueling an ambitious dream. But this week’s funding list is a reminder that not all startups can be built this way – some businesses need more than grit and a Wi-Fi connection. At the top is China’s Robotera, which is working on embodied AI and hu

A Singapore court has dismissed a man's application for a personal protection order against his wife after finding he used generative AI to prepare legal documents, including citing a case that did not exist. Magistrate Soh Kian Peng criticized the man for relying on AI without reviewing the output, noting the documents showed inconsistencies like shifting between first and third person. The magistrate reminded litigants they must take responsibility for AI-generated content in court.

Intel is expected to report its sixth consecutive net loss and fifth straight revenue decline, with analysts forecasting a $1.2 billion loss and 7% revenue drop to $11.9 billion. New CEO Lip-Bu Tan is pivoting away from the costly 18A technology to the 14A chipmaking process, which may trigger major writedowns. The company's foundry unit, mostly serving internal needs, aims to break even by 2027. Intel has been losing market share to Nvidia and AMD in AI chips and PCs.

The US has approved sales of advanced AI chips to G42, an Abu Dhabi-based AI firm, as part of a wider US-UAE agreement. The approval includes up to 35,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips worth about $1 billion, tied to strict security conditions to prevent technology diversion to China. G42 previously committed to divesting from China's Huawei, which paved the way for a $1.5 billion Microsoft partnership in 2024.

Crypto exchange Kraken has confidentially filed for a US IPO, backed by an $800 million funding round at a $20 billion valuation. The company plans to use the funds for international expansion and payment services, recently partnering with European instant payments provider Ivy. Kraken also launched KRAK, a consumer app expanding into payments across Latin America, Asia Pacific, and EMEA.

OpenAI's head of safety systems Johannes Heidecke is leaving the company, the latest in a string of safety-focused departures. His exit follows OpenAI's reorganization merging safety and research teams under VP Mia Glaese. The company also saw its chief futurist Joshua Achiam leave earlier this week. This comes as OpenAI launches GPT-5.6, which showed "concerning forms of misaligned behavior" compared to previous models. For users, these departures signal ongoing turbulence in how one of the biggest AI companies handles safety as it races to release more capable models.

 **Image Credits:**Thomas Fuller / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images 6:01 PM PDT · July 10, 2026 U.S. federal cybersecurity agency CISA said it did not have a prepared response plan for how it should handle a cybersecurity incident in May, after an investigative reporter notified the agency that a contractor had publicly exposed sensitive keys and credentials for accessing U.S. government systems. CISA, the Homeland Security unit tasked with defending federal networks and helping to safeguard critical infrastructure, revealed Friday [in a post-mortem report](https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/lessons-cisas-cyber-incident) that its staff “had to spend time building [a

SK Hynix, the South Korean memory chipmaker that makes the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips powering AI processors, may be planning to sell additional shares in the US market to raise more capital for its American investments. The company recently made a successful debut in the US market. SK Hynix is a critical supplier to NVIDIA and other AI chip manufacturers, making any moves by the company significant for the broader AI industry supply chain. Memory chips like HBM are essential components in AI data centers, and investments in chipmakers can affect how quickly and affordably AI technology scales.

A new landscape map from TechInAsia profiles Korea's key AI startups and their biggest investors, showing where funding is concentrating in the country's AI scene. Think of it as a cheat sheet for who's building what in Korea's AI sector. Useful for investors and tech professionals tracking Asia's AI ecosystem, but not essential reading for everyday users.

China's AI industry is caught in a token frenzy—the basic processing units that AI models chew through to generate responses. Average token usage per chat has exploded from a few hundred characters to over 50,000 tokens as AI agents and coding tools proliferate. This surge is driving massive revenue growth for Chinese AI firms (ByteDance's Doubao handles 180 trillion token calls daily), but also triggering supply chain chaos: memory chip prices have doubled, and capacity is sold out through next year. Cloud providers like Alibaba and Tencent have raised prices by up to 430% to cope. A new class of "middle-layer" companies—aggregating AI models, optimizing inference, and managing costs—is emerging as the critical bridge between AI developers and enterprise customers. For everyday users, this means AI services will likely get pricier as companies pass on infrastructure costs.

Apple is suing OpenAI, claiming the ChatGPT maker ran a systematic campaign to poach over 400 former Apple employees—including the former iPhone design chief—and steal trade secrets about unreleased products. The timing is notable: OpenAI is building its own hardware division, with its first product not expected until 2027 at the earliest. This legal fight highlights the brutal talent war between Silicon Valley giants.

A new Straits Times feature explores how Singapore workers in "AI-resilient" sectors—healthcare, plumbing, security, and eldercare—are actually embracing AI tools to handle paperwork and admin tasks, while keeping the hands-on, people-facing parts of their jobs firmly human. Workers like Radiana Ahmad, a healthcare assistant, use ChatGPT for translation but say AI cannot replace the physical care and emotional connection they provide. The piece comes as Deputy PM Gan Kim Yong highlights that domestic-facing sectors will remain key employers even as AI reshapes the economy. Experts say while these jobs are harder to automate, workers who adapt to AI tools will have a growing productivity edge over those who do not.

Meta's new AI image tool, Muse Image, lasted less than a week before being pulled. The feature let users generate AI images based on public Instagram posts—raising major privacy red flags and fears about deepfakes. Privacy advocates and entertainment unions like SAG-AFTRA quickly condemned it. Meta quietly disabled it, admitting it 'missed the mark.'

A Cambridge study reveals terrorist groups like Boko Haram and ISIS are actively using popular AI chatbots—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini—to plan attacks, build explosives, and train operatives. ISIS has been teaching commanders how to bypass AI safety filters since 2023. Researchers say voluntary safeguards clearly aren't working, calling for stronger regulation.

OpenAI's latest model reportedly cracked a 50-year-old math puzzle called the Cycle Double Cover Conjecture in under an hour, using 64 subagents working together. While mathematicians call the proof surprisingly simple, they criticize it for ignoring prior work on the topic. The bigger debate: Is AI actually creating new knowledge, or just recombining what humans already know?

ByteDance is launching Seedance 2.5, the first AI video model capable of generating native 30-second clips in a single pass with impressive consistency in character, lighting, and motion. Early testing shows one-shot videos that hold together remarkably well, even maintaining small details across the full duration. The model accepts up to 50 reference inputs and supports region-level edits, targeting advertisers and creators who currently need to stitch shorter clips together.

Samsung is now requiring users of its Samsung Health app to consent to their personal health data—including activity, sleep, menstrual cycles, and medications—being used to train AI models. The catch: opting out means losing the ability to sync health data with your Samsung account. The change coincides with Samsung's major Health app AI update coming to Galaxy Watch 9 at its July Unpacked event, where AI will provide personalized workout and sleep coaching.

An opinion piece argues that America's AI boom could face serious obstacles due to data center infrastructure challenges including power grid limitations, water consumption for cooling systems, and local opposition to large-scale facilities. The piece warns that environmental and regulatory hurdles may slow AI expansion significantly.

A Pennsylvania state senator is facing scrutiny over his involvement in a $300 million data center deal. While he claims he had no role in securing the contract, his consulting firm still received payment. The deal highlights how data center contracts, particularly those tied to AI infrastructure, can attract political attention and potential conflicts of interest.

OpenAI's new ChatGPT Work feature launched with multiple problems: a confusing interface, unexpectedly high costs, and cases where it deleted user data without permission. The company publicly admitted the rollout was botched and is rushing to fix it. For workers and businesses relying on AI tools, these glitches mean unreliable workflows and potential data loss.

China's Beijing Academy of AI has built Orca, a world model that teaches robots to predict outcomes without needing step-by-step instructions. Trained on 125,000 hours of video with zero action labels, it matched a specialized robotics system on five tasks. This could help solve robotics' chronic data shortage, potentially making robots smarter and cheaper to develop for factories and homes.

Meta's latest AI model, Muse Spark 1.1, now scores higher than China's GLM-5.2 on coding tasks while being cheaper to use. The hallucination problem — when AI makes up facts — also dropped significantly from 73% to 38%. For everyday users, this means coding assistants and developer tools are getting more reliable and affordable.

A security firm called Nebula used its AI tool VEGA to discover GhostLock (CVE-2026-43499), a critical 15-year-old Linux bug that lets any logged-in user gain root access to vulnerable machines. The flaw shipped in almost every mainstream Linux distribution since 2011 and needs no special permissions or network access. Nebula's exploit worked 97% of the time and earned researchers $92,337 from Google's bug bounty program. The bug was fixed in April, but some Ubuntu systems remain unpatched as of early July.

AI data centres are guzzling more power than ever, sparking a construction boom in gas power plants that climate advocates are fighting hard to push back against. Tech giants like Google are now cutting deals with utilities to connect their own solar, wind, and geothermal projects directly to the grid — a major shift in how energy policy is being shaped. States like New York and Michigan are passing laws requiring data centres to get 90% of their power from clean sources by 2040. Bottom line: the AI boom is reshaping the energy grid, and your favourite AI tools come with a hidden carbon price tag.

Samsung's new Micro RGB R95H TV ($3,200 for 65 inches) has landed with middling reviews. While it sets up easily and the AI Soccer Mode Pro makes sports look vivid, the display's colors aren't as bright or realistic as competitors like LG's Micro RGB Evo. The anti-glare tech actually hurts picture quality, making movies look too subdued. For premium TV buyers wanting the best colors, this might not be the upgrade they hoped for.

Nvidia is reportedly preparing a new GeForce RTX 5090 SE graphics card to sit between the RTX 5080 and flagship RTX 5090. Based on the same GB202 chip, it will have 14,080 CUDA cores, 32GB GDDR7 memory, and draw around 500W of power. The target price is $1,500 — though expect street prices to be much higher due to ongoing GPU shortages driven by AI demand.

## Abstract How are terrorists using AI? Semi-structured interviews with 27 former Boko Haram members conducted in northeast Nigeria in 2025 and 2026 reveal unprecedented detail about AI-assisted terrorist activity primarily through 2024. This report finds that both factions of Boko Haram use frontier AI, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Meta AI, and DeepSeek, to assist in combat and day-to-day operations. This AI use is institutionalized through specialized units and internal training. It has aided in attack planning, weapons troubleshooting, and the design of explosive devices, as users have successfully circumvented some safeguards. This know-how was transferred through transnational jihadist networks, with Islamic State operatives delivering in-person training. Respondents expr

Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora is begging AI companies to slash their prices — arguing costs must drop 20% by 2027 and a massive 90% by 2028 for AI to actually work for businesses. He's warning that the sky-high prices of AI tools are making it hard for companies to justify using them to automate work and cut costs. The irony? Even the tech giants selling AI are now complaining it's too expensive. Critics say the entire AI industry has overpromised on what it can deliver, leaving CEOs stuck with massive AI bills without the labor savings they were promised.

A hands-on test reveals that Fitbit's $99 screenless Air tracker nails heart rate tracking but struggles with calorie counting, being up to 30% off during weight training. Wrist-based devices like this can't match chest straps for speed because they sit farther from the heart — so blood takes longer to reach your wrist. If you're tracking workouts for fitness goals, heart rate data is reliable, but treat calorie burn estimates as rough guesses, not exact science.

AI still can't write books people actually want to read. Despite hype that chatbots would revolutionize publishing, AI struggles to maintain coherence over long outputs — a problem called 'context rot.' Online forums are filled with confused tech believers asking why AI writing feels flat and predictable. The reality: AI over-explains themes, avoids subplots, and can't match the moral complexity of human storytelling.

OpenAI is now building AI products specifically for families, not just individual users. ChatGPT's user base is aging — more adults 35+ and parents are using it, with nearly one in four U.S. parents using ChatGPT last quarter, up from 16% a year ago. Kids are using AI even more than parents realize (38% vs 27% reporting). OpenAI faces lawsuits over harms to minors and is adding parental controls and safety features as it moves toward household AI.

OpenAI and Apple are heading to a legal showdown, with an OpenAI engineer's casual 'LOL' moment apparently triggering the dispute. Bloomberg reports the companies are now in conflict, though the specifics of the disagreement remain unclear from this source.

Researchers from University of Maryland and Google DeepMind found AI-generated fiction has distinct tells beyond obvious markers like excessive em-dashes. Their StoryScope tool detects AI writing by analyzing narrative structure — AI stories over-explain themes (77% vs 52% for humans), lack subplots, and play it safe with tidy endings. GPT defaults to dream sequences, while Claude writes flat event escalation. Human stories remain far more diverse and morally complex.

Meta's new AI image tool, Muse Image, lasted less than a week before being pulled. The feature let users generate AI images based on public Instagram posts—raising major privacy red flags and fears about deepfakes. Privacy advocates and entertainment unions like SAG-AFTRA quickly condemned it. Meta quietly disabled it, admitting it 'missed the mark.'

A Cambridge study reveals terrorist groups like Boko Haram and ISIS are actively using popular AI chatbots—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini—to plan attacks, build explosives, and train operatives. ISIS has been teaching commanders how to bypass AI safety filters since 2023. Researchers say voluntary safeguards clearly aren't working, calling for stronger regulation.

OpenAI's latest model reportedly cracked a 50-year-old math puzzle called the Cycle Double Cover Conjecture in under an hour, using 64 subagents working together. While mathematicians call the proof surprisingly simple, they criticize it for ignoring prior work on the topic. The bigger debate: Is AI actually creating new knowledge, or just recombining what humans already know?

Samsung is now requiring users of its Samsung Health app to consent to their personal health data—including activity, sleep, menstrual cycles, and medications—being used to train AI models. The catch: opting out means losing the ability to sync health data with your Samsung account. The change coincides with Samsung's major Health app AI update coming to Galaxy Watch 9 at its July Unpacked event, where AI will provide personalized workout and sleep coaching.