New initiatives to facilitate cross-border data transfer and multimodal AI model Meralion

[SINGAPORE] New initiatives to facilitate cross-border data transfer and artificial intelligence (AI) safety were among the slew of announcements by the Infocomm and Media Authority of Singapore on Wednesday (May 28).
A new Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) certification was announced, which would give businesses certainty in international data transfers. The certification would show compliance with internationally recognised data protection standards.
This new certification is built on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) CBPR certification. OCBC is among the 100 Apec CBPR-certified organisations expected to benefit.
At the start, the global CBPR certification will give access to nine economies – US, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Canada, Philippines, Chinese Taipei and Mexico. The global CBPR certification will take effect on Jun 2.
'Robust safeguards and a uniform framework for personal data across borders are crucial for secure and efficient data flows,' said Loretta Yuen, head of group legal and compliance, OCBC.
A new version of a multimodal large language model developed by A*Star – Multimodal Empathetic Reasoning and Learning in One Network (Meralion) – was also launched on Wednesday. Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo announced that a consortium for Meralion will be established in a speech at ATX Singapore.
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'A*Star (Agency for Science, Technology and Research) will partner companies such as DBS, Grab, ST Engineering, NCS, SPH Media Trust as well as the Ministry of Health to harness expertise in the ecosystem, share learnings and accelerate adoption,' she said.
Meralion can understand emotions, context and intent across South-east Asia's multiple languages and cultures such as English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, Bahasa Indonesia, Thai and Vietnamese. Version one was downloaded more than 90,000 times since its launch in December 2024.
'Understanding local nuance, context and culture isn't just a technical challenge – it's a human one,' said Bidyut Dumra, group head of innovation, DBS.
The consortium will priorities three areas:
Multilingual customers support: enabling seamless natural communication across languages and dialects
Health and emotional insight detection: analysing speech and text for emotional cues
Agentic decision-making: making AI agents aware of context and cultural sensitivity
The consortium will aggregate demand and reduce costs, while sharing data and technical insights to improve Meralion's performance. Tools, training and developer resources will be built to accelerate implementation, and consortium members will develop real-world proof-of-concepts together for deployment.
'As a news media company, we recognise the importance of embracing technologies that can enhance user experience, and in so doing allow us to reach and engage audiences more effectively,' said Loh Yuh Yiing, chief operating officer of SPH Media.

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