As well as a new research hub, Google Cloud and NHG Health are collaborating to use AI predictive insights to advance Singapore’s preventative healthcare efforts.

Google is deepening its partnership with Singapore to deploy frontier AI across the nation’s healthcare system. The primary goals of the new collaboration, announced at the Google for Health Summit in Singapore, are to accelerate scientific discoveries, transform clinical care delivery and empower Singaporeans with proactive health tools.

Working with local researchers, clinicians, and public agencies, it intends to use technology where it says “will have the greatest impact: driving medical breakthroughs”. This includes helping frontline workers focus on patient care, giving people better ways to manage their health, and expanding preventive care across the community.

Google Research will launch a new research hub in the country. Starting with a local team of research scientists and software engineers, the group will focus on two areas. First, focusing on advancing foundational AI efficiency, and second, cultivating local scientific talent. It will partner with local academic institutions, including the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), to nurture future scientific leaders and provide targeted research support.

In addition, Google Research will scale its existing health research initiatives in the country. This includes applying open models like MedGemma to frontline care settings to enable the local healthcare ecosystem to develop secure, customised solutions.

“The true power of AI lies in solving complex societal challenges, and there is no area more critical, personal and ripe for advancement than healthcare,” said Ben King, country managing director of Google Singapore. 

“With Singapore’s rapidly ageing population, we see tremendous potential for this technology to accelerate medical breakthroughs and support clinicians on the frontline to help citizens live longer, healthier lives,” he added. 

Preventative healthcare

Google Cloud and NHG Health are collaborating on a Population Health Digital Transformation Programme to use AI-driven predictive insights to advance Singapore’s preventative healthcare efforts at scale. 

At the core of the programme are two integrated technological pillars. First, a predictive model which combines NHG Health’s de-identified population health database with Google’s geospatial tooling and solutions that aggregate non-personally identifiable spatiotemporal data such as climate, environmental, search and behavioural signals. The engine forecasts health risks, such as chronic diseases and frailty, at a granular sub-population level.

Second, an AI-enabled Health Coach. These insights feed directly into an AI-enabled Health Coach on the NHG HealthBot, leveraging Google’s Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience (GECX) platform. The coach delivers contextual lifestyle advice and preventive guidance to residents. Continuous, anonymised interactions refine the predictive models over time, creating a self-improving health ecosystem. 

The Health Coach initiative will focus on two preventive health use cases – screening uptake and frailty prevention, with a longer-term aspiration to integrate with national health platforms.

“By bringing data and intelligence together, we can better understand the individual residents behind the data, reach them earlier, and turn every interaction into a personalised and targeted opportunity to help residents in Central and North Singapore take charge of their health with good outcomes,” said Joe Sim, group chief executive of NHG Health.