A packed house at the SPH Auditorium lounge on Monday afternoon for our lunchtime discussion on cyber threats in the age of AI – conducted under the Chatham House Rule, which made for a refreshingly uninhibited debate.

The mood was neither outright despair nor facile optimism, but something far more nuanced. From the issue of state actors – where identifying the good and bad guys is rarely as clear-cut as mainstream narratives suggest – to the wider technological landscape, nothing is so simple. For enterprises, however, the message was far more direct: stop waiting for a crisis and start acting now.

Also discussed was the looming question of quantum computing. Most organisations are simply not looking that far ahead, yet "Q-Day" – the moment quantum capability renders conventional encryption obsolete – is creeping onto the horizon. Preparing after the fact will be pointless. Tying it all together was a frustration with international cooperation, which remains woefully outmatched by the scale of what is coming.

Our thanks to our moderator Bhavan Jaipragas who kept the discussion very interesting and panelists Gerry Chng, Gayle Goh, and Gaurav Keerthi for their sharp, unvarnished insights, as well as to everyone who joined us in the room.