I declare my interest as the owner and director of a company that provides software to training providers.
Mr Speaker, we face a structural threat to our workforce. For decades, Singapore’s economic model has been built on the premise that a highly educated and skilled workforce would hold the keys to a prosperous future and be a buffer against economic storms. However, we are now in the midst of a paradigm shift where artificial intelligence (AI) is not only augmenting human capability, but in many ways, replacing it. Unlike past economic cycles, where such turbulence could be written off as an episode of creative destruction, AI promises to be a harbinger of a fundamental shift in our economic and social relationships. Taking this concept further, it would impact even the roles that the government plays in mediating between the individual and society.
Today, we must recognise that the very nature of labour’s economic power is changing. Failure to address this issue even as productivity soars will lead to an entrenched lower and middle class with a loss of economic agency.
This concern is articulated by Jasmine Sun in an opinion piece for the New York Times, where she identifies the "San Francisco consensus"—a growing recognition that the hiring of young workers in highly AI-exposed occupations is already in decline. She reminds us of the risk of a resulting “permanent underclass,” where the gains of technology are concentrated in the hands of the very few.
Not all the evidence points toward catastrophe. A 2025 US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper found that tasks with higher AI exposure do experience reduced labour demand. However, overall employment effects have so far been modest, as productivity gains offset some displacement.
Similarly, a study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics by MIT's Danielle Li and Stanford's Erik Brynjolfsson found that generative AI tools boosted worker productivity by nearly 15%, with the greatest gains among less experienced workers — suggesting AI can be a ladder, not just a trap door.
It should be noted that these studies examined early, and controlled deployments. As agentic AI scales across entire industries simultaneously, the distributional consequences may be more severe and swifter than early productivity research would suggest.
We cannot be certain which trajectory Singapore is on. The asymmetry of risk demands that we prepare for the harder scenario, not the easier one.
This concern is shared by the very architects of the AI revolution. In 2021, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted in his blog post, Moore’s Law for Everything, that AI would shift power from labour to capital, positing that if public policy does not adapt accordingly, most people will end up worse off than they are today. Crucially, Altman was not fatalistic — he argued that the proactive redistribution of AI-driven wealth, including giving citizens equity stakes in the economy, could make this a broadly prosperous transition.
Similarly, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, has observed that the health of a democracy is premised on the average person having leverage through creating economic value — a view he expressed in his 2024 essay, Machines of Loving Grace. The erosion of that leverage is a deeply concerning prospect that requires a bold and structural policy response.
Singapore is uniquely positioned to lead this response — and to capture the genuine economic opportunities AI presents for our people. As a small, open economy with a highly educated workforce, strong institutions and well-capitalised sovereign wealth funds, we have the tools to act swiftly and structurally compared to many larger nations. But that window of opportunity will not remain open indefinitely.
Where cost arbitrage made offshoring attractive, AI could erode that advantage — not by bringing those jobs back, but by enabling small teams of skilled Singaporeans to do the work that once required hundreds of offshore workers. The opportunity is not in reshoring in the traditional sense, but the concentration of higher-value orchestration and oversight roles here at home, where trust, institutional quality and proximity to decision-makers matter.
And AI's equalising potential extends beyond white-collar work. A blue-collar worker who struggles with English could dictate in their mother tongue and have AI render it as professional documentation in real-time — freeing them to focus on their craft rather than their grammar. AI should be an equaliser that elevates the technical master, not a wedge that stratifies our workforce.
AI tools can also power a new breed of local startups by enabling small, hyper-efficient teams to create immense value and scale, achieving global reach with minimal manpower.
Singapore must be at the forefront of this shift while ensuring the benefits accrue to all our citizens. This will require workers and entrepreneurs who are trained, skilled and adept at harnessing AI tools and innovations, and empowering their employees to do the same.
Our current efforts to reskill Singaporeans are often hampered by the trap of low-utility external training programmes which produce certifications that lack real-world currency in an AI-driven economy. These programmes enrich training providers while leaving workers with skills that have little economic value.
This misalignment risks creating a two-speed economy, where capital owners and tech-integrated firms leave behind those stuck in the slow lane of traditional employment, leading to a fundamental erosion of social cohesion and increasing the risk of long-term structural unemployment.
To address this, I propose the establishment of the National AI Equity Fund. This fund is a necessary safeguard to maintain the integrity of our social contract. It is a strategic surplus transfer from enterprises which benefit immensely from AI back to Singaporeans to facilitate our collective stability.
I will elaborate on the precise financing mechanisms shortly, after I explain the uses of the Fund.
I propose that the fund be organised into two distinct pillars.
The first is a Social Dividend, where revenue is distributed as a direct payout to every adult Singapore citizen. I propose an initial annual dividend of $500 per adult citizen, scaling upward as Fund contributions grow. This is modest by design — it is not meant to replace income, but to provide a tangible signal that every Singaporean has ownership in our shared future. Based on our current citizen population, this would cost approximately $1.5 billion annually — or less than 10% of last year's Budget surplus — and provide a meaningful return to every Singaporean household.
This would serve as a social floor, ensuring that the gains from national digital prosperity provide tangible peace of mind and dignity for all. This dividend will provide an additional cushion for families as the nature of work evolves. It also allows Singapore to reap the full productivity benefits of AI without overly exacerbating social inequality.
An argument could be made that the CDC vouchers already do this, but those are entirely discretionary. The Social Dividend I propose is a structural entitlement, a function of receipts rather than what the fiscal mood of the moment happens to be. That distinction matters enormously to a family planning its future.
The other portion of the fund will be dedicated to a Mastery Fund, which will be an employer-led on-the-job training (OJT) model that moves training out of the classroom and onto every enterprise.
I propose that the Mastery Fund provide a Mastery Apprentice Wage, covering 50% of the gross salary, capped at the median wage, for six months for any Singapore citizen entering or transitioning into an AI-augmented role. This rewards the worker’s effort to adapt while lowering the barrier for firms to hire, train and retain talent in a volatile market.
Recognising that many SMEs lack the capacity to design structured OJT, I propose that the fund also finance a pool of expert OJT consultants. These consultants, experienced in OJT design, will rotate between firms to structure OJT blueprints tailored to each firm’s specific needs. This would help SMEs fill in their talent gap while also addressing the need to create new steps in the ladder of training and apprenticeships for new entrants into the marketplace.
Furthermore, I suggest a Mentorship Credit be provided to employers to compensate senior staff for the time they spend on structured mentorship, turning our workplaces into true academies of mastery and ensuring that skills remain relevant to the actual needs of the economy.
The Mastery Fund should be made available to all business entities and societies that are founded and based in Singapore, including micro enterprises. The use of funds should be closely monitored to ensure that it genuinely contributes to AI mastery within each firm. I estimate the annual cost of the Mastery Fund to be approximately $1.42 billion.
Funding the Fund
Let me now set out the financing details.
The first source is a marginal increase of two percentage points in the Corporate Income Tax rate for firms with annual profits exceeding $100 million. By focusing on these companies, we capture the “automation surplus” from those best positioned to drive growth through AI rather than headcount. Whether global tech firms or traditional giants, these enterprises are at the forefront of decoupling revenue from labour. This tax increase would generate an estimated $1.5 billion annually, ensuring that gains from record-breaking efficiency are recycled back into the National AI Equity Fund for the benefit of all Singaporeans.
The second source is a targeted increase in the utilisation of our investment returns. I propose raising the maximum Net Investment Returns (NIR) taken into the budget from 50% to 52.5%, with this additional 2.5% flowing directly to the Fund. Based on current estimates, this would raise approximately $1.45 billion annually.
Our sovereign wealth entities, GIC and Temasek, have been early movers in the AI space, investing in foundational firms like Anthropic and committing billions to the AI Infrastructure Partnership alongside Microsoft, BlackRock, and Nvidia. As these global investments profit from the automation of labour worldwide, it is only right that we recycle a modest portion of those gains back to our own workforce. Reallocating 2.5% is not a radical request; it ensures our reserves provide more than just financial stability, but also the long-term economic agency of every Singaporean.
As we look toward this future, we cannot simply assume that displaced workers will transition smoothly into new roles as they have in previous technological revolutions. The steam engine did not replace human judgment, but AI may do just that.
That is precisely why passive reskilling is insufficient, and why the financial security of a Social Dividend is needed. Workers shifting toward less automatable roles — in entrepreneurship, care work, the skilled trades, sports and the arts — do not need just training, but time and security to make that leap. Certainly, new jobs will emerge that we cannot yet imagine, but we must build a system robust enough to support our people even if that emergence is slower or more unevenly distributed than we would otherwise hope.
The National AI Equity Fund provides the financial buffer for Singaporeans to make these transitions with confidence. During this year's Committee of Supply debate, I proposed the Youth Wage Credit Scheme — a targeted wage subsidy for employers who hire younger Singaporean workers. The National AI Equity Fund extends that logic into a broader, longer-term framework for all Singaporeans navigating the AI transition and other future technological disruptions.
Conclusion
Mr Speaker, the National AI Equity Fund is a renewal of our social contract for the digital age.
We cannot allow AI to become a wedge that fractures our society. Instead, we must use it to become the greatest equaliser our nation has ever known. By establishing the Social Dividend and the Mastery Fund, we give every Singaporean a direct stake in our digital prosperity and the resources to stay ahead of the curve.
Let us make it our goal to ensure that as machines grow more capable, our people grow more secure. By acting now, we can ensure that technological progress serves the dignity and economic agency of every Singaporean.
I support the motion.
