The Internet in Singapore: From ‘Intelligent Island’ to ‘Smart Nation’

This is a chapter about the historical, political and ideological underpinning and the variegated impacts of internet development in Singapore. It traces the development of the Internet in Singapore from the 1990s, when mass public internet access first began, through the ‘intelligent’ era (1990s to 2000s) and into the digital phase (circa 2010 onwards), culminating in the present ‘Smart Nation’ era (from 2015). The chapter highlights the strategic single-mindedness of Singapore’s journey to become one of the most technological and digitally networked societies in the world. Even before the advent of the Internet, Singapore had already envisioned a first world city-state with top-rate communication infrastructure, one that would be supported by a highly-educated and technologically-savvy workforce. We see in this chapter how Singapore’s determined pursuit of—and successes in—‘intelligent’ and ‘smart’ Internet visions has set the scene for it to influence proceedings in global debates around aspects of internet governance, especially in relation to political and economic sovereignty.