Singapore sets aside $1.2B for govt ICT tenders

SINGAPORE--The government says it will initiate new ICT tenders worth S$1.2 billion (US$936.7 million) this financial year covering areas that include data analytics, e-services and business process management.

This marks an increase from last year where it invested over S$1.1 billion (US$857.8 million) in 638 ICT contracts.

James Kang, assistant chief executive of government chief information office for Singapore's ICT regulator, Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), said at an industry briefing here Thursday the government will also pilot a new process to acquire "innovative ICT solutions" and evaluate working prototypes.

Contracts will then be awarded to selected proposals for pilots and implementation, Kang said, noting this would allow government agencies to partner more closely with the local ICT industry to drive innovation.

The IDA will also lead a multi-agency plan and issue a call-for-collaboration to encourage the ICT industry to develop applications that tap government data. Government bodies involved in this initiative include Department of Statistics, Land Transport Authority, Health Promotion Board and National Library Board.

Another project in development is the Government Cloud, or G-Cloud, which is a multi-tenanted private cloud infrastructure that will provide computing resources required by the public sector.

The Singapore government said the G-Cloud infrastructure will be ready by end-2012 and it will be looking to sign on various software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service. Earlier this month, Singapore Telecommunication secured two IDA tenders to deploy the infrastructure for G-Cloud as well as deliver cloud services that will run on the government cloud.