Singapore’s recent interventions at international fora are a wake-up call: rules that shape technologies affecting everyone must not be monopolised by a handful of powerful states or a few gigantic platforms. The warning lands like a bell — urgent, unavoidable — because technology is no longer an abstract tool; it is now a force that rearranges power, economics and human lives at machine speed.
Working with small and medium-sized enterprises across the island reveals the anxiety beneath the policy statements. At a recent roundtable, a hawker-turned-entrepreneur described losing three weeks of revenue to a ransomware attack that demanded a payment denominated in a foreign cryptocurrency. Another business owner, tears barely contained, explained how a poorly governed AI hiring tool filtered out talented local applicants because it was trained on data that didn’t reflect our context. These are not theoretical risks. They are immediate, painful, and deeply personal.
Why monopoly over tech governance is dangerous
First, concentration of influence over critical technologies warps incentives. When a few private entities or dominant states set the norms by default, the decisions made in boardrooms or capital cities ripple across borders. Access, deployment, safeguards — these choices determine who benefits and who pays the cost. Historical parallels are stark and instructive: chartered trading companies once commanded armies, negotiated treaties and reshaped societies. Today’s platform giants do not wield literal militaries, but their reach over information flows, infrastructure and advanced AI is comparable in its potential to remake global relations.
Second, the pace of technological change far outstrips the pace of governance. Emerging AI capabilities are moving faster than the laws, norms and international institutions that should hold them in check. The result is dangerous friction: weapons systems that can escalate at machine speed; non-state actors turbocharging crime; and economies vulnerable to automation that deepens inequality. The consequence is clear — without inclusive governance, those who lack research capacity, talent pipelines and robust infrastructure will be left behind. That is not just unfair; it is destabilising.
A compact, not a chokehold
What’s needed is not stifling regulation. The aim should be to build trust, safety and assurance so innovation can flourish responsibly. A new compact between governments, technology firms and the international community must embody three elements: candid risk assessment, shared norms and enforceable guardrails. That sounds simple on paper, but it requires brutal honesty about threats and genuine power-sharing across countries large and small.
Progress is possible. Chairing multinational working groups demonstrates that consensus can be found even in a fractured world. Practical outcomes — norms on information communications technology behaviour, basic expectations for attribution and restraint, and mechanisms for capacity-building — can be established. But those outcomes will only stick if the process includes voices from developing countries, small states and the SME sector. Otherwise, the result will be a set of rules that reflect the priorities of a few and ignore the vulnerabilities of many.
Practical priorities for an inclusive approach
- Shared technical standards and transparency: Open standards, explainability requirements and clearer audit trails for AI systems reduce asymmetric power and help small players compete on fairer terms.
- Affordable shared infrastructure: Pooled cloud resources, regional compute hubs and common datasets for non-commercial use can democratise access to capabilities otherwise siloed behind deep pockets.
- Talent and research partnerships: Scholarships, twinning programmes and joint labs between academic institutions and smaller enterprises help build the three capabilities that matter most: research, talent, and infrastructure.
- Incident response and resilience: SMEs need playbooks, shared threat intelligence and subsidised access to incident response teams. Preparedness reduces the human cost when attacks strike.
- Clear liability and accountability frameworks: Companies that deploy frontier tech with broad societal impact must be accountable to standards that transcend national boundaries.
These are not pie-in-the-sky ideas. They emerge from working on the ground, listening to entrepreneurs who sleep with their phones on because their livelihoods depend on digital systems. They come from conversations with policymakers who know that national security now includes the integrity of data flows and the resilience of supply chains. Emotion runs high because the stakes are high: families, jobs, social cohesion and, ultimately, sovereignty.
Who should take responsibility?
Governments cannot abdicate responsibility simply because technology is complex. Every nation state remains the final arbiter of national security and the steward of international law. At the same time, tech firms must accept that decisions made for business reasons can have geopolitical consequences. The private sector should be invited — not coerced — into transparent, accountable governance frameworks. Civil society and academia must serve as watchdogs and sources of technical critique.
Small states bring a crucial perspective. Experience shows that pragmatism often trumps ideology. When the choice is between exclusion or engagement, engagement yields norms that protect the many rather than entrench the few. That is why international capacity-building and inclusive norm-setting matter so much: they prevent a new digital form of neo-colonisation where benefits are privatised and harms externalised.
There is urgency. There is also agency. If the global conversation about technology governance becomes richer and more inclusive, the future can be shaped so that innovation improves lives rather than deepens divides. Policymakers, private companies, academics and community leaders must step up and negotiate rules that reflect shared interests, shared risks and shared responsibilities. The alternative — a governance landscape carved up by a powerful minority — is unacceptable and avoidable.
Change requires will more than perfection. Begin with honesty. Build trust. Share resources. The moment to act is now.