Autonomous AI systems are beginning to move beyond software environments and into warehouses, delivery networks, and public spaces. The development is drawing attention to whether current AI rules cover systems that operate in physical environments.

Most existing AI governance frameworks have focused on online harms and model outputs, including bias, misinformation, and harmful content. Embodied AI systems carry risks in physical environments, where failures can affect infrastructure, property, or human safety.

Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority published version 1.5 of its Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI on May 20. The framework sets out guidance for organisations deploying AI agents that can plan, make decisions, and take actions across multiple steps to complete user-defined goals.

The framework says agents can interact with tools, external systems, and other agents, including systems that update databases, write files, control devices, or perform transactions. It lists access controls, monitoring, and human approval among governance measures for deployment.

AI moves into physical systems

At an AI summit in Singapore last week, discussions around robotics and embodied AI focused on operational safety issues more commonly associated with aviation, industrial systems, and critical infrastructure oversight than conventional software regulation.

Speakers also discussed whether autonomous systems can operate safely and reliably in unpredictable real-world environments over extended periods.

Dr. Ya-Qin Zhang, founding dean of the Institute for AI Industry Research at Tsinghua University, said embodied AI systems amplify risks already associated with autonomous software. He said failures can directly affect transport systems, drones, logistics networks, and critical infrastructure.

“Any risk in the digital domain will be amplified in the physical domain, and the physical domain will have a physical consequence,” Zhang told MLex on the sidelines of the summit.

He added that vehicles, drones, smart grids, and other infrastructure could become exposed as AI systems are embedded more deeply into physical operations.

Speakers discussed reliability, operational monitoring, and post-deployment assurance as governance concerns. Summit discussions pointed to deployment-based governance models built around simulation, telemetry, and iterative testing, rather than one-time certification alone.

IMDA’s framework also recommends gradual rollouts, continuous monitoring, and further testing after deployment. It says agents interact dynamically with their environment and not all risks can be anticipated before release.

Monitoring becomes a deployment issue

Grab, which is piloting autonomous vehicles and delivery robots in Singapore’s Punggol district, said deployment governance depends heavily on simulation, testing, and continuous monitoring.

“We do a lot of simulation, we do a lot of testing in closed courses and open courses in order to make sure our robots are reliable,” Suthen Thomas Paradatheth, Grab’s chief technology officer, said during one of the summit panels.

“Before we scale to hundreds of robots, we make sure we crack it first in simulation and with a few robots,” he added.

Grab also pointed to monitoring systems designed to track robot performance and detect unexpected failures after deployment.

“There’s a long tail of issues that could emerge,” Paradatheth said.

The IMDA framework says organisations should assess agentic AI use cases based on data access, external system access, autonomy, and task complexity. It also points to the scope and reversibility of agent actions, third-party involvement, and overall system complexity.

It also recommends limiting agent access to tools and systems, applying least-privilege permissions, and defining standard operating procedures for agent workflows. Organisations should also set mechanisms to take agents offline when they malfunction.

Accountability spreads across more actors

MLex reported that embodied AI systems can involve several parties across development, manufacturing, and deployment. These include AI developers, robotics manufacturers, semiconductor suppliers, and infrastructure operators.

MLex also noted that responsibility can be harder to assign when systems continue adapting after deployment through software updates, telemetry, and operational data.

IMDA says organisations and humans remain accountable for agent actions, even when agents operate autonomously. The framework calls for clear responsibility across the agentic AI value chain, from model and platform providers to deployers, tooling providers, and end users.

Applied Materials said large-scale robotics deployment is also tied to semiconductor economics and systems integration. Om Nalamasu, the company’s chief technology officer, said robotics systems will depend on better sensors, energy efficiency, advanced packaging, and computing architectures.

Nalamasu said robotics systems would require purpose-built designs adapted to specific industrial ecosystems rather than a single solution for all environments.

Zhao Yuli, chief strategy officer of Chinese robotics startup Galbot, said Beijing is prioritising deployment scale and industrial commercialisation through government-backed testbeds, industrial partnerships, and long-term funding initiatives.

Galbot has deployed humanoid robotics systems in retail, warehouse, and pharmaceutical operations in China. These include autonomous stores that operate around the clock. Zhao said semi-structured industrial environments are likely to become an early commercialisation path because they offer more controllable operating conditions.

Japan is placing more focus on standards-setting, robotics datasets, and safety governance. Professor Yutaka Matsuo of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering pointed to an “AI Association” project aimed at collecting 100,000 hours of robotics data to support robotic foundation models.

Matsuo also referred to Japan’s AI Safety Institute and the Hiroshima AI Process as part of broader efforts to develop governance standards for embodied AI systems with Singapore and other Asian countries.

Singapore sets out agent controls

Singapore’s framework sets out four governance areas for agentic AI. These cover upfront risk assessment, human accountability, technical controls, and end-user responsibility. The framework describes them as an iterative process rather than a one-time assessment.

The framework says human oversight has to be adapted for agentic systems because continuous review of all workflows becomes impractical at scale. It recommends human approval at significant checkpoints, including high-stakes actions, irreversible actions, and outlier behaviour.

IMDA also identifies automation bias and alert fatigue as risks when humans supervise capable agents. It recommends auditing oversight through indicators such as human override rates and response times, and using automated real-time monitoring to flag unexpected behaviour.

The framework says users should be told what actions an agent can take, what data it can access, and what responsibilities remain with the user. It also recommends employee training on human-agent interaction, oversight, and the professional skills needed to assess agent outputs.

Companies test AI in regulated workflows

JPMorgan is implementing AI tools across its global investment banking business, Paul Uren, the bank’s Asia Pacific head of investment banking, told Reuters. The bank said the tools help bankers access more information and synthesise it with internal systems. They are also being used to prepare content and support client engagement.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon told Bloomberg News that the bank would hire more AI specialists and fewer traditional bankers. Reuters reported that global banks are increasing AI investment, reshaping workforces, and changing job roles.

The bank is also among selected organisations permitted by Anthropic to use its Mythos cybersecurity model under a controlled initiative known as Project Glasswing. According to Anthropic, Mythos can detect old vulnerabilities in browsers, infrastructure, and software.

Reuters reported that Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley also have access to, or are testing, Mythos, citing sources and company executives.

IMDA’s framework includes a case study from OCBC Bank of Singapore on source-of-wealth analysis. The system parses income-related documents and drafts a source-of-wealth memo. It does not make credit, onboarding, or risk decisions autonomously.

In that case, the workflow is limited to task-level autonomy and operates only when triggered by predefined workflows. Human review is required at critical decision points, and final validation remains with designated reviewers.

Robots move into industrial use

In Japan, one-third of companies are already using or considering AI-powered robots, according to a Reuters survey conducted by Nikkei Research from May 1 to May 15. The survey contacted 492 companies, with 220 responding on the condition of anonymity.

About 4% of respondents said they already use AI robots, 5% plan to deploy them, and 25% are considering doing so. The remaining 66% said they had no such plans.

Transportation equipment manufacturers were the most active group in the survey, with 80% already using AI robots or considering deployment. By comparison, 94% of wholesale sector respondents said they had no plans to deploy AI robots.

Among companies using, planning to use, or considering AI robots, 71% selected manufacturing as a use case. Another 19% selected dangerous tasks, while 11% selected customer-facing services.

The Japanese government expects AI robots to help address the country’s chronic labour shortage and support its position in industrial robotics. Japan is home to robotics companies including Fanuc, Yaskawa Electric, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, but faces competition from China and the United States in AI-enabled robotics.

Retail agents expand beyond search

Walmart has outlined plans to use agentic AI across shopping, employee, supplier, and developer workflows.

In July 2025, the retailer announced plans for four AI-powered “super agents.” They are designed for shoppers, store employees, suppliers and sellers, and software developers. Walmart said these agents would become the main entry point for AI interactions across those groups.

One of the tools, Sparky, is already available in Walmart’s app as a generative AI-powered shopping assistant. Hari Vasudev, Walmart’s US chief technology officer, said its expanded version would be able to reorder items and plan events. It would also use computer vision to suggest recipes based on the contents of a shopper’s fridge.

Walmart is also developing an Associate super agent for store workers and corporate staff. A separate Marty agent is being built for sellers, suppliers, and advertisers. The retailer is also working on a Developer super agent for testing, building, and launching future AI tools.

The company declined to say whether the agents would replace jobs. Dave Glick, senior vice president of enterprise business systems, said the tools would create new jobs, without giving further details.

(Photo by Growtika)

See also: OpenAI opens Singapore AI lab as IMDA updates AI framework

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OpenAI will open its first Applied AI Lab outside the US in Singapore. The lab is part of a new partnership with the Ministry of Digital Development and Information.

The initiative, called OpenAI for Singapore, was announced at the ATx Summit and is backed by a commitment of more than S$300 million.

The lab will create more than 200 Singapore-based technical roles over the next few years. OpenAI said Singapore will also become one of its global hubs for forward-deployed engineers who will work with organisations on AI deployment. OpenAI said the lab’s work will be aligned with Singapore’s AI Mission priorities which include public service, finance, and digital infrastructure.

Focus on deployment and talent

The company will work with government agencies and local partners on education and workforce programmes within the Ministry of Education and GovTech. OpenAI also plans to support educators through a Singapore chapter of the OpenAI Academy, participate in the National AI Impact Programme, and run Codex for Teachers hackathons.

The partnership includes plans to work with local partners on accelerator programmes for AI-native startups in the form of workshops for micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses, covering how founders and SMEs can use AI in operations and customer service.

Chng Kai Fong, Permanent Secretary for Digital Development and Information, said Singapore’s response to AI includes growing new sectors, anchoring global frontier companies, and equipping workers with relevant skills.

Singapore updates agentic AI framework

Singapore has also updated its governance framework for agentic AI, which was launched by the Infocomm Media Development Authority at the World Economic Forum in January 2026. The framework builds on Singapore’s earlier Model AI Governance Framework for AI, introduced in 2020, and gives organisations guidance on the responsible deployment of AI agents, including measures to reduce the risks inherent in agentic AI.

IMDA has now updated the framework after seeking feedback and case studies from the industry, with the revised version following input from more than 60 organisations, including AWS, DBS, Google, and Salesforce.

The update adds guidance on risks linked to multi-agent systems, third-party agents, automation bias, and human accountability. The framework now includes more than ten case studies showing how organisations have applied its recommendations.

The case studies were contributed by Singaporean and international organisations, including Ant International, City Developments Limited, Cyber Sierra, Dayos, Google, Knovel, OCBC, PwC, Stability Solutions, Tencent, Terminal 3, Workday, X0PA, and GovTech Singapore.

Case studies show governance controls

One case study focuses on Dayos, a Singapore-headquartered enterprise AI automation company with operations in the US. Dayos built an AI-powered ticketing agent that handles internal IT requests. The agent can resolve some requests automatically and route requests to a human when needed.

Dayos used tiered risk levels to determine what actions the agent could take. Low-risk and reversible actions, like password resets, could be automated and audited biweekly, while moderate-risk actions required human approval before execution. Higher-risk actions, like permission changes with limited reversibility, were excluded from the agent’s authority.

Tencent contributed a case study on CodeBuddy, an agentic AI coding system developed by Tencent Cloud. CodeBuddy can plan, write, and deploy code through natural language instructions and can access filesystems, terminal commands, external APIs, and MCP tools.

CodeBuddy uses preset defaults and configurable permissions. Human approval is required for actions like editing files, running shell commands, making network requests, or using external tools.

The system explains complex commands in plain language before users approve them. Suspicious commands still require human approval, even if similar commands had been pre-approved.

GovTech Singapore’s case study covers the rollout of agentic coding assistants in government. The first phase was limited to GovTech employees, did not allow external tools, and was restricted to low-risk systems. GovTech developed central logging and a framework for connecting approved external tools. The agency also tested the system against potential attacks.

(Photo by Mike Enerio)

See also: GPT-5.5 is OpenAI’s most capable agentic AI model yet

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Alibaba has unveiled a new AI processor built specifically for AI agents, pairing the chip announcement with a multi-year silicon roadmap and a new large language model, signalling that the company is building an integrated AI stack rather than just filling a gap left by US export controls.

The Zhenwu M890, developed by Alibaba’s semiconductor subsidiary T-Head, delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu 810E, according to the company, as per Reuters report. But the performance jump is less notable than the architectural intent behind the chip: the M890 is purpose-built for AI agents, where software systems must retain long stretches of context, coordinate with other models in real time, and execute complex multi-step tasks with limited human intervention. 

Those demands, heavy on memory bandwidth and inter-model communication, are meaningfully different from what standard inference chips are optimised for. The difference matters because it tells you something about where Alibaba thinks AI compute is heading. The company isn’t designing around today’s dominant use case; it’s building for the workload profile it expects to define enterprise AI over the next several years.

Built for AI agents, not just inference

More significant than the chip itself is the roadmap Alibaba put alongside it. The M890 will be followed by the V900 in the third quarter of 2027, expected to deliver another roughly threefold performance gain, followed by the J900 in the third quarter of 2028. That’s a deliberate, sustained cadence of in-house silicon upgrades that mirrors the kind of tick-tock product cycles Nvidia has used to maintain its lead in AI accelerators.

The parallel to Huawei is worth noting. Huawei laid out a similar chip roadmap for its Ascend line last year, and both announcements reflect the same underlying reality: Chinese technology companies have concluded that depending on foreign silicon, even in scenarios where export restrictions might ease, is a structural risk they cannot accept. The response has been to treat semiconductor development as a long-term capability-building exercise rather than a procurement problem.

Alibaba’s commitment to that exercise is not shallow. The company pledged more than 380 billion yuan, roughly US$53 billion, on cloud and AI infrastructure over three years last year, its largest-ever investment commitment to the sector. The M890 and its successors are downstream of that spending.

Traction that predates the announcement

T-Head said it has shipped more than 560,000 Zhenwu units to date, with over 400 external customers across 20 industries deploying the chips, including automakers and financial services firms. That is a material production footprint, not lab hardware, and it provides Alibaba with real-world deployment data at scale ahead of the M890’s rollout.

The new chip will be available to Chinese enterprise customers through Alibaba Cloud’s domestic model platform, Bailian, packaged inside the Panjiu AL128, a server system that stacks 128 M890 accelerators into a single rack.

The software side of the stack

Alongside the hardware, Alibaba announced Qwen 3.7-Max, the latest version of its flagship large language model, described as engineered for advanced coding and long-running agent tasks. The company said the model can operate continuously for up to 35 hours without performance degradation, a capability specification that only makes sense if you are designing for extended autonomous operation.

The timing is deliberate. Releasing a chip and a model optimised for the same workload class on the same day is a platform play. Alibaba is building a closed loop: its own silicon in T-Head, its own model in Qwen, its own cloud delivery in Bailian. Each component reinforces the others, and the combined stack is designed to reduce enterprise customers’ dependence on any external vendor.

More than half a million chips have been shipped. A successor is arriving in 2027, with another planned for 2028. T-Head is not hedging. At some point, building around US export controls stops being a workaround and starts being a strategy. Alibaba appears to have crossed that line.

(Image source: The White House)

See Also: Alibaba Qwen is challenging proprietary AI model economics

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The AI and Big Data programme on day two of TechEx North America referred at least once to the “AI graveyard,” meaning the large number of pilots that never become durable systems. That phrase set the tone. The question was proof.

The Enterprise AI Implementation, ROI and Adoption track dealt with the hard middle of AI work. Its sessions covered stalled pilots, agentic AI for business impact, the move from experimentation to impact, the decision to buy or build, and durable ROI and autonomous decisioning. A system has to be adopted, governed and measured before it deserved to be called successful.

The session on the AI graveyard was useful because it named the failure pattern. Many companies have enough budget to start AI experiments and enough executive attention to publicise them. Fewer have the data quality, process design, operating authority, and risk control to keep them going.

A day-two session on moving beyond copilots towards agentic AI framed the issue as business impact not novelty. Copilots have been useful as individual productivity tools, but their value is often hard to measure. Agents promise a closer connection to business process, yet they also increase the need for boundaries. An agent that can act in systems has to be evaluated by the quality of the action.

That point linked directly with the Future of AI track. Its opening theme, trust as a competitive advantage, was a useful counterweight to speed. The programme dealt with transparency, governance, regulation, banking analytics, and risk. It also included material from Hex on data agent, with evaluation and governance built in. Agentic AI will not mature in enterprise settings if evaluation remains informal.

Governance appeared in several forms. There was cross-functional governance, which reflects the reality that AI risk does not belong to legal, security or engineering. There was governance in the data layer, where trust depends on lineage and quality. There was governance around agent personas and risk stacks, where companies need to understand what an AI agent is permitted to know and do. The banking session gave the theme a sectoral focus, since financial services have less room for undefinedassurances about automation.

Digital Transformation Week carried the same day-two pressure into business delivery. The programme was built around real use cases, business impact, ROI, AI agents built on APIs, change readiness, government service transformation, city innovation and the conversion of data into financial value. The change-readiness material was especially important. AI fails because staff do not change routines, managers do not alter incentives, or the data needed for daily use never appears in the right place.

Sessions involving the DMV and the City of San Jose placed AI and transformation inside government service. In government, the measure of quality includes reliability, access, explainability and public trust. The Dow material on turning data into dollars sat at the commercial end of the same argument. In both cases, value depends on connecting data work with an accountable outcome.

The Cyber Security and Cloud Expo day-two programme expanded on risk. Its cloud-first enterprise track dealt with AI-led threats, cloud security, the “GenAI velocity gap,” threat intelligence, identity security and AI governance. The cyber programme treated AI as a force that changes attack and defence alike. It can help automate defensive work, but it can also accelerate misuse, widen leakage routes, and increase the strain on existing controls.

The phrase “velocity gap” was used several times during day two. Business units are adopting generative AI faster than many security teams can oversee it: the tools arrive first, policy and monitoring arrive later. The sessions on jailbreaking and data leaks made the point more concretely. If staff place sensitive material into unsanctioned tools, or if approved AI systems are poorly bounded, cloud security and data governance become one and the same.

Zero trust was presented as one answer, with a stronger interpretation of zero trust must now include AI systems, agents, and the data around them. Identity is not limited to human users, but services, agents and automated workflows require permission models as well. The cloud-first enterprise is therefore becoming a place where identity, data classification, AI governance, and threat detection are part of the same control mechanisms.

(Image source: TechEx/TechForge)

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