Ran Sun

万里长桥 - AIS Collaboration and Field-building to Bridge the East/West Divide Singapore is wonderful! I just returned from vacation there visiting a friend. What a beautiful city, delicious food, and friendly people! In particular, I met four members of the AI Safety community there. They’ve motivated this post with their insight and enthusiasm. I reached out before my trip on a simple request for feedback on a project, and one connection turned into many, which turned into a strong desire to help this nascent AI Safety community flourish. We desperately need more international coordination in AI Safety, especially between China and the US. Singapore (SG) is poised to support that mission. The Garden City has a perfect mix of talent, opportunity, location, and timing. There is tremendous opportunity for both local growth and for US/EU/CN orgs to coordinate with the region. Unique Benefits The US and China are the current major players in the AI race, and SG is delicately positioned as a bridge nation between these powers. With a long history of thoughtful diplomacy, western and eastern nations are more comfortable meeting in this neutral ground for sensitive topics such as AI. Verification and evaluation efforts based in SG can reach both Chinese and US labs, solving for a critical piece of the international coordination puzzle. Concordia, the premier Chinese AIS organization, has a very positive outlook on SG’s international position. 2027 will see SG step up to the ASEAN Chair position. With most members of the coalition woefully behind on the AI conversation, this is a tremendous opportunity to build AIS technical capacity in the governments of the region. As the middle powers around the world wake up to their role in the AI conversation, it is extremely timely to support them with the knowledge and experience we’ve built up over the past years. Fertile Soil Cut out of the equatorial jungle, the Garden City has been a hotbed of growth for technology, finance,