“A startup has to prove that an idea can work. A scale-up has to make it work repeatedly, across different markets beyond domestic shores, and at a much greater scale,” Mr Chee said.
This requires capital that can grow with a company, organisational capabilities that can keep pace and the ability to adapt to different markets, he added.
“Our aim is to create an enabling environment where companies can build from Singapore, progress from startup to scale-up, and become regional and global leaders,” he said.
AI MOVES INTO THE REAL WORLD
Granite Asia senior managing partner Jenny Lee sees this year’s cohort as part of a broader evolution of AI.
“We’re now going into what we call AI 3.0,” she told CNA, describing a shift beyond frontier models and AI agents towards their deployment in real-world environments.
“This year’s awardees … are actually leveraging AI models to transform industries. And that’s the excitement.”
Among this year’s honourees is Singapore-based Menlo Research, which is developing an open-source humanoid robot named Asimov, as well as an AI agent called Jan.
Asimov has attracted an international community of developers and enthusiasts who are customising and improving the open-source robot, according to the company.
But putting the advances seen in generative AI into a physical machine presents a very different challenge, said the firm’s founder Daniel Ong.
While AI systems can process enormous amounts of information, robots still struggle with tasks humans perform intuitively, such as interacting with objects, he added.
