BUILDING OUT CYBER SECURITY
Having identified cyber security as a new growth driver and set our sights on becoming a global leader in this space, we are accelerating the build out of the business by consolidating our cyber security assets into a single global business. This brings together 10 advanced Security Operations Centres (SOCs) across Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas as well as 2,000 cyber security professionals. Through these combined resources and capabilities, Singtel is primed to deliver a portfolio of world-class enterprise solutions to help protect customers and support their evolving needs, in a climate where cyber risks are rising and becoming increasingly complex.
To further broaden the reach of our business, we recently formed the Global Telco Security Alliance with Telefónica, SoftBank and Etisalat to offer enterprises access to a wider portfolio of cyber security services in over 60 countries. Together, the alliance operates 22 world-class SOCs and employs more than 6,000 cyber security experts.
EMPOWERING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Besides augmenting our cyber security capabilities, we have also undertaken several initiatives to help our customers accelerate their digital transformation.
On the cloud front, we collaborated with VMware to set up our first Digital Transformation Foundry in Singapore. The foundry is designed as a ‘virtual sandbox’ for customers to conduct proof-of-concept experiments that will help bring their digital solutions to market more quickly. Similar foundries to be created in Australia and Hong Kong will initially focus on delivering a suite of cloud services to enable customers to modernise their data centres, integrate public and private clouds, transform information security and create digital workspaces of the future.
Last December, we partnered with Singapore’s NTU and A*STAR to spearhead R&D in emerging technologies that will support the country's Smart Nation ambitions. The NTU partnership aims to pioneer breakthroughs in AI, advanced data analytics, robotics and smart computing applications, while that with A*STAR will focus on building automation systems, robotics and industrial IoT applications.
To develop the IoT ecosystem in Singapore, Singtel and Ericsson recently established an innovation lab to facilitate IoT deployments. We also collaborated with Twilio, a leading cloud communications company, to develop a platform that makes IoT more accessible to software developers. During the IoT Asia conference in March, we showcased the IoT applications that we are developing for sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, real estate and utilities.
BOLSTERING CONNECTIVITY
As we develop more innovative technologies to serve our customers, we are also upgrading our infrastructure to give them the robust connectivity they need to deploy their digital strategies. Singtel and the members of the Southeast Asia – Japan 2 undersea cable consortium recently announced the construction of a high-performance submarine cable that will connect Singapore to Southeast Asia and North Asia when completed in 2020.
The 10,500-kilometre submarine cable can carry 144 terabits of data per second, roughly the equivalent of simultaneously streaming 5.76 million ultra-high definition videos per second. Together with the 9,000-kilometre INDIGO submarine cable that will link Singapore to Australia when completed in 2019, these new cable facilities will allow us to meet the growing demand for bandwidth-intensive applications across Asia Pacific.
