Singapore Exports Surge on AI Boom, Fastest Growth Since 2003

Singapore's non-oil domestic exports (NODX) surged 38.4% year-on-year in May, the fastest pace of growth in over two decades, propelled by a global spending boom on artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The May figure, which extended a 24.4% increase in April, marked the strongest expansion since December 2003, according to DBS economist Chua Han Teng. The data was released on Wednesday by Enterprise Singapore for the nation ranked by The Economist as the world's second-richest by GDP per capita in 2025.

The increase was led by electronics exports, which jumped 94.8% year-on-year in May, accelerating from a 66.7% rise in April. According to The Straits Times, growth was primarily driven by integrated circuits, disk media products, and personal computers.

Zavier Wong, a market analyst at eToro, attributed the performance to rising demand from major U.S. technology firms including Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon. He noted that these four companies raised their combined 2026 capital expenditure plans to over US$700 billion in late April, a 77% increase from 2025 levels.

“The export profile is reshaped by AI, though what we’re really seeing is an extreme acceleration of something that is already part of Singapore’s DNA,” Wong said, as quoted by Channel News Asia. He added that while Singapore has long benefited from global technology demand, the scale and concentration of the recent growth are different.

In May, exports of integrated circuits rose 80.9% year-on-year, while shipments of disk media products and personal computers increased by 227.8% and 140.9%, respectively. Industry experts said these gains reflect growing investment in AI-related hardware such as semiconductors, data centers, high-performance computing systems, and storage technologies.

Analysts expect non-oil exports to remain in positive territory in the near term, though the current pace is unlikely to be sustained every month. Ang Wee Seng, executive director of the Singapore Semiconductor Industry Association, cautioned that growth could moderate in the second half of the year due to tougher year-earlier comparisons and external risks like tariffs and geopolitical tensions.

Wong said electronics exports “look durable” as long as spending by hyperscale cloud-computing companies remains strong. While demand should continue to be supported by AI infrastructure investment, he warned that the sector's growing reliance on a small group of major customers remains a vulnerability.