Global AI governance needed to avoid “devastation”, says data scientist

Data scientist Shaowei Ying thinks like a policymaker, builds like an entrepreneur and his path to leadership has been shaped by military training. And he has a warning about AI’s growth.

NCS chief scientist Shaowei Ying at Wharton Business School in the early 2000s.

Shaowei Ying is not your typical data scientist.

He thinks like a policymaker, builds like an entrepreneur and his path to leadership has been shaped by years of military training.

From helping to forge the Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement during his tenure at Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry to founding DataSpark, a big data analytics firm, Ying has spent his 30-year working career at the frontier of digital innovation.

Now approaching his third year as the inaugural chief scientist of the giant Singapore Telecommunications-owned NCS Group – a 10,000 staff-strong global digital powerhouse that was born as a Singapore government IT agency – Ying serves as the company’s voice for emerging technologies.

He works closely with its customers and partners across the region after watching artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly evolve from a theoretical concept into a ubiquitous technology that touches nearly every industry and aspect of our lives.

Now he has a stark warning for the world: AI may be advancing faster than our ability to control it.

While its impact, depth of integration and economic benefits are still emerging, worryingly they are being unevenly distributed.

“AI can bring enormous transformative benefits, but in the hands of the wrong people it can create havoc and a significant amount of devastation and then disruption,” he says from NCS headquarters in Singapore.

NCS chief scientists Shaowei Ying.

“What concerns me is how do we ensure we are on the right side of history here, that the AI is used for good? In order for that to happen, there needs to be collaboration and co-operation.”

AI is being piloted or implemented across almost every industry imaginable.

But Ying says that beneath the surface, real integration is shallow, uneven and riddled with blind spots.

His solution is as radical as it is logical: the world needs the equivalent of a World Trade Organisation (WTO) for AI.

Much like the WTO ushered in an era of global trade co-operation, an AI WTO could provide the framework the world desperately needs.

“AI is not confined to geographical boundaries or jurisdictions that we have. So in order to govern it effectively, there needs to be the equivalent of a WTO kind of arrangement where there is consensus on what is allowed and what should not be done,” he says.

“I think today, in our quest for innovation and doing more things with AI, the safety and governance aspects have not progressed as quickly, hence this gap is widening.”

He points to the way biased data delivers unfair outcomes for some consumers, citing credit scoring as an example.

“If the data that is used to train them (AI) is biased against a certain segment, you disadvantage a certain group of your population. So this kind of unfairness can manifest if the AI systems are not trained properly,” he says.

“Going forward as the world becomes more agentic, we are going to see this risk potentially amplified. The errors or the biases gets multiplied as they go along, so you can have very unintended outcomes.”

Beyond governance, Ying is deeply concerned by the social implications of AI, particularly the risk of a new digital divide in society.

With the digital transformation, some countries, companies, and individuals have thrived, while others have fallen behind. AI will likely repeat that pattern – but faster and in a more profound way, he says.

That is why he believes industry and governments need to join forces to solve the problem.

“It requires strong industry and government interlock to ensure that there is a general uplifting of AI literacy across the board; so that this digital divide, or the AI divide, doesn’t happen and that the follow-on negative social impact does not happen,” he says.

Artificial intelligence may be advancing faster than humanity’s ability to control it.

Yet even as the world grapples with AI, Ying has his other eye on the next frontier: quantum computing.

While full-scale quantum computers may still be five to 10 years away, he worries that the threats they pose are looming fast.

“They do have this potential to break many of our widely used encryption algorithms like RSA and ECC, which today are the backbone of a lot of our critical infrastructure to secure communications on the internet,” he says.

“So data stolen today, while it may not be able to be decrypted, could be done so in the future.”

He sees so-called “quantum resilience” as an essential part of digital resilience in the AI age.

“We stress a lot to our clients that in the era of artificial intelligence, we must think digital resilience first,” he says.

While much of the global debate around AI governance is clouded by geopolitics, particularly regarding China, Ying offers a more nuanced perspective shaped by decades of cross-border work.

He acknowledges the nervousness triggered by events like the Deep Seek moment earlier this year – a demonstration of Chinese AI capability which sent shockwaves through the tech community.

But he says fear should not dominate the conversation. In fact, he believes China could be part of the solution, particularly in bridging the AI divide.

“There is always that impression that the Chinese are ruthless in their collection of data. I would say that if you look the governance of AI, I think they are no different from the Europeans or the western hemisphere,” he says.

“Sometimes geopolitics can get into the way of how we look at some of these technologies from the China side.”

A front seat to visionary’s achievement

Ying grew up witnessing the fruits of visionary leadership, embodied not only in the state of Singapore, but also in his own family.

His late father, Ying Yok Hang, played a pivotal role in Singapore’s industrialisation.

As one of the early employees of what was then called the Jurong Town Corporation (JTC), he was at the forefront of one of the country’s most ambitious infrastructure projects, reclaiming the swamplands of western Singapore to build what became a critical industrial zone.

The connection between Hang and the broader national effort wasn’t just symbolic.

He worked closely with the office of Singapore’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew and even featured in archival footage briefing leaders on JTC projects.

When Hang died in March 2015, it was the same month the founder of modern Singapore Lee Kuan Yew also died – an eerie coincidence not lost on the family.

“My dad was always a strong admirer of LKY. I don’t think he had any plan to go in the same month though,” Ying says.

Shaowei Ying’s late father, Ying Yok Hang, at Sydney University in the 1960s.

His mother, a teacher by profession, also helped shape Ying’s intellectual foundations.

Both his parents had studied at the University of Sydney, and education was held in the highest regard in their household.

His sister followed their mother’s path into teaching. Today, their mother lives with Ying, a poignant symbol of family continuity amid the rapid pace of change in modern Singapore.

Growing up, he remembers Singapore as already being firmly on its upward economic trajectory.

“When I was born, Singapore was already on the ascendancy and for many of us in our generation and after that, we have taken for granted the strong economic growth trends and also the very strong labour market,” he says.

“For our country, with very limited resources, we managed to grow very quickly and take advantage of our strategic location. We then invested wisely and prudently in certain sectors that created employment, wealth and uplifted whole communities.”

LKY put in place policies that were controversial, such as making English the national language and putting people through national service, but they were breakthrough ideas at the time.

The man widely regarded as the father of modern Singapore, the late prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.

Being a Singapore native, Ying completed his compulsory national service as a young man, spending two-and-a-half years in the armed forces. He has returned to serve voluntarily many times since. Some of the training has occurred in co-operation with Australian forces in Queensland.

“Like most people who have gone through the military service, it was a bit of a shock to the system. You are put through your paces, challenged to have mental endurance,” he says.

“But what I realise now looking back is the really deep bonds and the friendships you develop with some of your mates as you go through. So I think that has really helped build a national identity for Singapore.”

He believes his time in the military taught him resilience, adaptability, and how to make critical decisions in ambiguous circumstances.

He has studied in the UK, US and Asia, including at the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

One of the most memorable experiences came during a summer internship at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California in 1995.

It was a year of cosmic significance, when the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet was crashing spectacularly into Jupiter, and Ying had a front-row seat.

“The propulsion lab was one of the major research centres that was looking at this geological event, taking signals and feeds from a whole network of ground observatories as well as the Hubble Space Telescope,” he says.

“It was really quite awe inspiring to see all these things before on my eyes.”

Back home in Singapore, Ying’s professional career took shape at the intersection of public policy, consulting, and cutting-edge technology.

Vision captured by the Hubble telescope of Shoemaker-Levy 9 hitting Jupiter.

He held senior roles at McKinsey & Company, the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry, and eventually Singtel, where he headed strategy and analytics for Singtel Group Digital Life.

But perhaps his most ambitious leap came when he founded DataSpark, a big data analytics and insights company.

“Data spark was essentially a corporate spin-off. I took a team of data scientists and engineers to build a venture around harnessing the anonymised telco network signals to better understand how cities work and urban mobility patterns, with the aim of making better decisions around the management of road and rail transport,” he says.

“My important learning was that while technology is important, at the end of the day it is the people behind the technology that matters even more.

“It is easy to forget that. So in order to make a business successful, even an AI business, it is about more than just the technology.”

Securing a footprint in Australia

In early 2022, NCS made two major acquisitions in Australia, significantly boosting its regional footprint.

In March that year it spent $325m on acquiring The Dialog Group, Australia’s largest privately‑owned IT services company. Less than a month later it announced the $290m purchase of ARQ Group, a fast‑growing digital services firm based in Melbourne with offices in Sydney and Brisbane.

“Australia is one of our most important overseas markets outside of Singapore right now and we have been growing our presence in Australia,” Ying says.

“We are very optimistic that we can make a positive impact and difference to our business clients in Australia.”

A Singapore Airforce AS332 Super Puma helicopter in Queensland where exercises have been conducted. Picture: Chris Ison

NCS now builds AI tools in areas that mirror human cognition; from AI that helps clients learn better (knowledge AI) to contact centre solutions (conversational AI) to safety (video AI).

In Singapore, NCS has created an AI-powered virtual career coach with the local Employment and Employability Institute, strengthening career support for jobseekers.

The tools can provide advice via a chat-based interface to help users identify career goals, interests and existing skills, directing jobseekers to relevant roles, and skills development programs in their career planning.

“Asking key questions about how AI can enhance an organisation’s capability to deliver value is the most important first step,” he says.

“A piecemeal approach to AI can cause fragmented efforts and poor results, while a comprehensive approach considers people, processes, product and business goals to create smart business impact.

“Aligning AI initiatives with the core purpose and mission of the organisation – public or private – is critical.”

Originally published as Global AI governance needed to avoid “devastation”, says data scientist