Media release
Singapore launches Singapore Medical Foundation AI Model (SIMFONI) to develop home-grown AI models for safe, effective and responsible use of AI in public healthcare
9 July 2026
Media release
• SIMFONI is a national R&D initiative that adapts and contextualises AI foundation models using local clinical data and guidelines, to support clinicians and improve patient outcomes across the public healthcare system.
• It is adapting AI foundation models and developing tools addressing specific areas of clinical needs, including clinical decision support for cardiometabolic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidaemia in primary care, and multimodal AI for the diagnosis and management of eye diseases such as cataract, retinal diseases and glaucoma, with plans to expand to other clinical areas over time.
SINGAPORE, 9 JULY 2026 – Singapore is advancing artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare with the launch of Singapore Medical Foundation AI Model (SIMFONI), a national R&D initiative that adapts and contextualises AI foundation models for Singapore’s multi-ethnic population, local disease patterns, clinical guidelines and care pathways.
Singapore’s healthcare system faces growing pressure from an ageing population, rising chronic disease burden and a stretched clinical workforce. There is a need to find ways to improve healthcare sustainability and better prepare the system for future healthcare challenges.
Speaking at NCS Impact1, Minister for Health Mr Ong Ye Kung announced the launch of SIMFONI, highlighting it as a promising ground-up initiative that will develop home-grown AI foundation models trained on local clinical data and guidelines to support better clinical decision-making.
Why Singapore needs its own AI foundation models
Most AI foundation models used in healthcare today are trained on data from Western populations, which can limit the accuracy and relevance in Singapore’s clinical settings. SIMFONI addresses this gap by adapting existing foundation models using local clinical data and guidelines. Foundation models contextualised to Singapore’s population and clinical context are better positioned to support accurate and relevant clinical decision-making, and can be embedded responsibly into everyday clinical workflows, ensuring the technology supports clinicians and serves patients effectively.
Supported by the Singapore Ministry of Health through the National Medical Research Council (NMRC) Office, MOH Holdings Pte Ltd, SIMFONI was jointly conceptualised by Prof Robert Morris, Executive Director, SIMFONI, Adj Prof Ngiam Kee Yuan and A/Prof Daniel Ting who are part of the SIMFONI leadership team.
SIMFONI’s early-phase work focuses on two areas of clinical need: clinical decision support for cardiometabolic conditions in primary care and multimodal AI to improve the diagnosis and management of eye diseases. The longer-term vision is for its AI tools to be seamlessly embedded within the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system, serving as a trusted companion to clinicians across all care settings.
Enhancing clinical decision support for primary care
Cardiometabolic conditions – diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidaemia – represent one of the largest chronic disease burdens in Singapore’s primary care system. Asian populations have disease patterns and health risks that differ from Western populations. For example, diabetes manifests earlier and at lower BMIs, and genetic risk factors also differ. Singapore, with its multiethnic population and robust healthcare data infrastructure, is uniquely positioned to develop AI systems that serve Asian patients and their specific medical needs.
SIMFONI is developing AI-enabled clinical decision support tools to assist clinicians in delivering timely, personalised and evidence-based care for cardiometabolic conditions. These tools use a layered approach that combines proven clinical methods with advanced AI. First, validated risk prediction models flag patients who may need early intervention. Second, Singapore’s national clinical guidelines are built directly into the system, so recommendations are grounded in current standards of care. Third, foundation models then reason across the full picture - patient history, current presentation and clinical context - to surface additional care considerations that a clinician might otherwise need to look up separately. Each layer reinforces the other layers: the AI does not operate in isolation but builds on top of guidelines and validated risk models.
Adj Prof Ngiam Kee Yuan shared, “Our goal is to develop trustworthy AI that fits naturally into everyday clinical practice, enabling clinicians to deliver better care while meeting the healthcare needs of our population. By helping clinicians identify those who may benefit from earlier intervention and supporting more informed decisions, patients can receive more targeted and timely care.”
Leveraging Multimodal AI for eye diseases
Building on Singapore's strengths in clinical AI and ophthalmology, SIMFONI is developing multimodal AI systems that leverage multi-lingual AI agents to perform history taking, including risk profiles, medical imaging, and other clinical data to support clinicians in making more informed decisions.
Patient-clinician conversations can be automatically transformed into structured clinical records, which are combined with retinal images and other health information to provide a comprehensive assessment of patient health. For medical imaging, this will leverage a multi-disease multi-specialty imaging foundation model, optimised further with specialty-centric medical imaging.
The initial focus is on eye diseases such as cataract, retinal diseases, and glaucoma, enabling more precise diagnosis, improved risk stratification, and more accurate triage of specialist referrals. As the eye provides valuable insights into systemic conditions including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and neurological disorders, this work also lays the foundation for expanding multimodal AI to other medical specialties.
A/Prof Daniel Ting said, “As clinicians, we rarely make decisions based on a single source of information. We combine a patient's history, risk factors, medical images, and clinical findings to build a complete picture of their health. SIMFONI brings these different sources together through multimodal AI, beginning in ophthalmology and potentially extending to other specialties, enabling more precise, proactive, and patient-centred healthcare."
From research to real-world clinical deployment
Looking ahead, SIMFONI will progress from research into piloting phases, with a focus on rigorous validation and alignment with national health priorities, before its AI foundation models and tools are introduced into real-world clinical deployment across Singapore’s public healthcare system.
Prof Robert Morris, Executive Director of SIMFONI, said, “AI has the potential to advance healthcare outcomes, but its impact depends on how effectively it is embedded into real-world clinical practice. Our mission is to develop and deploy trustworthy, clinically grounded AI tools that can be scaled across Singapore’s public healthcare system. By bringing together healthcare clusters, research institutes and government agencies, we aim to integrate AI into care delivery in a way that improves patient outcomes and provides sustainable care for all Singaporeans.”
About Singapore Medical Foundation AI Model (SIMFONI)
The Singapore Medical Foundation AI Model (SIMFONI) was established in 2025 to drive the development and deployment of foundation models for healthcare.
Foundation models are a class of models that are based on machine learning and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). They are trained on a broad class of data, in our case medical knowledge, diagnostic and treatment protocols, aggregated anonymous medical histories, medical images, and biological data. Foundation models can then be adapted to a wide range of downstream tasks such as question answering, providing reference material, and other information that could be useful in improving health outcomes both for individuals as well as the population at large.
SIMFONI aims to take a national approach — building general-purpose, clinically grounded AI tools that can be adapted across a range of settings to support healthcare professionals and, over time, empower patients in preventing and managing disease. The programme will also advance the effective, safe and responsible use of AI in Singapore’s healthcare systems to support healthcare professionals and patients.
SIMFONI is committed to building the capabilities, partnerships, and infrastructure needed to translate these models into real-world impact. Through collaboration with clinicians, researchers, and technology teams, the programme will build, test, and deploy AI tools that integrate into clinical workflows, enhance decision support, and make care more proactive, personalised, and scalable.
SIMFONI is a programme of the Consortium for Clinical Research and Innovation, Singapore (CRIS). SIMFONI is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Health through the National Medical Research Council (NMRC) Office, MOH Holdings Pte Ltd under the NMRC SIMFONI Funding Initiative (MOH-002026).
For more information, please visit https://simfoni.sg
For media enquiries, please contact:
Teo Wan Qi
Assistant Manager, Corporate Communications
Consortium for Clinical Research and Innovation, Singapore
Loi San San
Assistant Director, Corporate Communications
Consortium for Clinical Research and Innovation, Singapore
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