In what could be termed as a significant upgrade plan, the Singapore government has decided to overhaul its Internet infrastructure in order to handle speeds upto 10 Gbits per second. The nation is looking to invest nearly $100 million for the revamp for futuristic demands like artificial intelligence, immersive digital experiences and autonomous devices.

The announcement was made my IMDA which is a board under the Singapore Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI). It is to be noted that nearly 85% percent of Singaporean households have access to 1 Gbit or higher bandwidth and the infrastructure for such was planned and laid down in 2006 itself at a time when broadband connection was a distant thought in India.

“A higher-capacity broadband network provides the foundation to enable these future innovations and opportunities. It is important for Singapore to invest ahead in foundational connectivity infrastructure, even as use cases continue to develop and evolve, so as to be future-ready,” IMDA said.

While the current fiber capacity of the country can handle speeds upto 10 Gbps, the $100 million funding will be used to upgrade both back end and front end equipments like modems and routers.

While the ministry at this time cannot pinpoint the exact fields and sources of futurisitc data-consumption for which they are upgrading the network but they are confident that the overhaul will provide seamless experience to services that will demand faster bandwidth at low latency in the coming years.

Communications and Information minister Josephine Teo says “That the future will involve more immersive digital experiences. It will involve some additional smart devices. And we can recognise that the impact of AI will be quite pervasive and that there willl be many ways in which it will be deployed and you want to be able to benefit from them.”

As many as three Singaporean ISPs already provide 10 Gbit services between $60 – $90 susbscription per month but with the upgradation of the core infrastructure, more rivals can be expected to offer similar services at competitive pricing.