S'pore chipmakers see growth wave amid generative AI boom

Republic set to be key player as firms look to expand capacity, widen talent pool

- Ovais Subhani

Singapore is poised to emerge as a critical supplier and processing node for semiconductors that can handle the vast computing and memory needs of running generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) applications on devices as compact as smartphones.

products As the global market for gen AI encompassing both hardware and software enters a widely expected boom over the next few years, chipmakers here in Singapore and elsewhere are looking to increase their production capacity and broaden their talent pool.

Many chipmakers are in the race, including Qualcomm, which has a test centre of excellence in Singapore that carries out design verification and failure analysis for the smartphone chipmaker's products and technologies.

new But the company that gives Singapore the largest footprint in the gen AI chip market is Micron Technology one of the world's top producers of memory chips that process and store data.

Because of Micron, Singapore commands a 10 per cent share in the high-end global memory market, according to HSBC.

And demand for these memory chips is set to increase as exponentially as that of logic chips, which perform computing functions.

Mr Sumit Sadana, executive vice-president and chief business officer at Micron, believes that 2024 will be the first year when personal computers armed with AI devices and applications will start getting introduced. Some latest smartphones with AI capabilities are already in the market.

Production of these devices will then ramp up quite heavily in 2025 and 2026, he said.

But this period will eventually be seen as just the beginning of a much longer investment and innovation cycle.

"It is really in its early infancy of what will be a 10- and 20-year wave of investment that will drive AI into every corner of the economy and every part of the lives of consumers," he told The Straits Times in an interview.