Google DeepMind is setting up a new base in Singapore to push AI development and (what it calls) its real-world benefits in the Asia-Pacific region. The AI research lab said the latest development builds on its existing work in the region and that it has almost doubled its Asia Pacific team over the past year.
A team of research scientists, software engineers, and AI impact experts will work at its Singapore facility on critical areas of research and development, continuing DeepMind"s "foundational research in linguistic and cultural inclusivity for Asia Pacific, advance Gemini"s core capabilities, and apply the latest models across Google products and for Cloud customers."
For the uninitiated, Google DeepMind is behind popular AI models like Gemini, Veo, Imagen, Gemma, and Lyria. Headquartered in London, the Alphabet subsidiary already has several research labs in the US, Canada, France, Germany, and Switzerland.
The AI research lab will work directly with the governments, businesses, and academic institutions across the region. Its AlphaFold AI program, which predicts protein structure, was used by a Singapore research team to pioneer a breakthrough in understanding Parkinson"s disease and to identify ways to achieve earlier diagnosis and targeted therapies.
DeepMind has worked with GovTech Singapore and other agencies to test advanced agentic AI systems on Google"s air-gapped cloud infrastructure, making the Singapore government the first in Asia to do so.
Meanwhile, its sibling company, Google, is offering a free Google AI Pro plan for 1 year to college students in Singapore, giving them access to the latest Gemini 3 Pro and Veo 3.1 models, unlimited image uploads for analysis, and 2TB of storage, among other benefits.
Google says in the fine print that eligible students can sign up for the free access until December 9. The search giant has pulled a similar move in India, offering 1.5 years of free access to the Google AI Pro plan.