The Digital and Intelligence Service of the Singapore Armed Forces wins award for harnessing Red Hat’s open source technologies to accelerate innovation, foster transformation, and deliver lasting business impact.
Red Hat recently announced the winners of the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2025. This year, DBS Bank was one of two Singapore winners recognized for their forward-thinking use of open source to drive innovation, enable transformation and create meaningful impact across their organizations.
At the heart of AI adoption in 2025, organizations across Asia Pacific are moving decisively beyond experimentation to focus on measurable business impact.
Research from IDC, sponsored by Red Hat and Intel, forecasts that by 2030, AI will generate US$19.9 trillion in global economic value, contributing 3.5% of global GDP. Much of this growth will come from enterprises that embed AI into their operations to optimize processes and open new opportunities.
With experimentation giving way to full-scale AI adoption, the differentiator will be how organizations harness open source to unlock AI’s full potential, driving agility, scalability, and sustainable value. Smaller, open-source models tailored for local contexts and business needs are also emerging to bridge today’s capabilities with tomorrow’s possibilities while amplifying human expertise.
Embodying this year’s theme “Unlock what’s next”, the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2025 celebrated customers turning these trends into tangible results. The awards recognize 30 winners across the region whose inventive use of Red Hat’s open-source technologies has sparked innovation, strengthened competitiveness, and delivered lasting value for their industries, customers, and employees.
These organizations demonstrate how open source empowers enterprises to reimagine possibilities, navigate complexity, and seize new opportunities in an evolving landscape to define future competitiveness.
Marjet Andriesse, Senior Vice President and General manager, APJC, Red Hat, said: “The pace of change in Asia Pacific shows no signs of slowing, especially as AI becomes a core driver of business transformation. Despite these demands, our customers have delivered remarkable results, showing that innovation thrives when paired with open source.”
She added: “The Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2025 are an opportune time to recognize and celebrate these achievements, highlighting how our customers are unlocking what’s next and shaping a future defined by creativity, resilience, and impact.”
The awards comprise five categories: Digital Transformation, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud-native Development, Automation – and the newly added AI and Emerging Tech.
DIS – winner in AI & Emerging Tech category
The Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS), the fourth service of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), plays a critical role in defending Singapore in the digital domain and enabling the SAF to operate as a networked force against a wider spectrum of external threats.
The DIS has identified cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) as critical enablers, and established the SAF C4 & Digitalization Command (SAFC4DC) with digitalization as a mission. The SAFC4DC will accelerate and integrate efforts across the SAF’s digital technology stack to deliver end-to-end digitalization outcomes.
ME7 Guo Jinghua, Commander, SAFC4DC, DIS, said: “The digitalization of the SAF is mission-critical for the SAF to realize our vision of SAF 2040. Cloud, software and AI have become crucial warfighting capabilities for the SAF, equal to the advanced platforms the SAF deploys in the land, air and maritime domains.”
The DIS partners closely with the Defence Technology Community, and industry innovators such as Red Hat, to operationalize AI and cloud capabilities reliably and securely in constrained warfighting environments. Through such collaborations, the DIS unlocks digital enablers for the SAF to gain enhanced situational awareness and derive deeper operational insights for decision-making.
“To build and deploy the advanced digital capabilities we need, the DIS is deepening our partnership with the Defence Technology Community, and collaborations with industry innovators such as Red Hat,” said Guo.
“We will deploy and integrate leading commercial capabilities into our environments to scale defense AI capabilities for the SAF’s operational edge. We hope our efforts will inspire further collaboration across the defense ecosystem to advance innovation and resilience in the digital domain.”
