Google Cloud expands AI data residency controls in Singapore

Google announced the general availability of Gemini on Google Distributed Cloud in air-gapped environments

Google Cloud has announced a set of enterprise AI updates focused on Singapore, including expanded data residency guarantees and new deployment options for its Gemini models. 

The updates are designed to provide greater control to public sector agencies and enterprises over where and how their AI workloads are processed.

According to Google, the Singapore cloud region is now amongst the first globally to offer data residency for both data at rest and machine learning processing. 

This applies to services such as Gemini 2.5 Flash, Vertex AI Search, and NotebookLM Enterprise, allowing organizations to keep AI workloads entirely within Singapore.

Public sector agencies will be able to use these guarantees to develop Cloud Confidential Eligible (CCE) applications on the Government on Commercial Cloud (GCC) platform. GovTech Singapore will also pilot Google Agentspace with selected officers, enabling the creation and deployment of custom AI agents for internal use.

In a joint initiative, GovTech is collaborating with the Cyber Security Agency (CSA) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to explore an AI agents sandbox. As part of this effort, Google will provide a browser control tool based on its Project Mariner technology, accessible through the Gemini API.

Google also announced the general availability of Gemini on Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) in air-gapped environments, alongside a preview of Gemini on GDC connected. These options enable organisations to deploy Gemini models in their own data centers—supporting use cases that require stricter data controls or meet regulatory requirements.

In the healthcare sector, Google is working with the National University of Singapore (NUS) to apply Vertex AI Search for Healthcare & Life Sciences to research areas such as genomics, medical imaging, and clinical records. The collaboration is aimed at developing assistive multimodal AI tools to support precision medicine.

For businesses, Google is expanding its AI Cloud Takeoff (AI CTO) program in partnership with Digital Industry Singapore (DISG), under the government’s Enterprise Compute Initiative. The program offers support packages valued at up to $500,000 per company, designed to help organisations build data-compliant AI solutions locally and scale to other regulated markets.

Google Cloud also announced its Customer Engagement Suite—a contact center platform powered by AI—is now generally available across Asia. 

Singapore-based organisations named in the announcement as adopters of Google Cloud’s AI services include DBS Bank, FairPrice Group, Grab, and Sea Limited.