SUTD students and staff get access to GPT, Claude, Gemini and other AI models

SINGAPORE - From Sept 14, students and faculty from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) have access to a range of AI tools including GPT, Claude, Gemini, Qwen and Kimi.

The tools are available to the university’s 170 faculty and 3,000 students through a new online platform set up by the university, called the SUTD Large Language Model (LLM) Gateway.

In a media statement on Sept 14, SUTD said different models have different strengths, and the range offered can change as technology develops.

The move comes as AI use becomes increasingly common and encouraged at universities here.

Chee Yeow Meng, SUTD’s provost, said there was no centralised access to AI tools previously, as faculty and students subscribed to various AI providers separately, using their course or project budgets.

“Rather than picking one AI company to standardise on, or having each person subscribe to different providers separately, SUTD is giving its community one common front door to multiple AI models,” said Chee, who is also SUTD’s chief academic and innovation officer.

Through a chat interface on the online platform, staff and students can access 15 AI models across six providers like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. Chee said the list is expected to grow as new models are added.

He added that they can also request specific models that are not yet available.

They can also use an API-key which connects them to a broader marketplace of over 500 AI models beyond the curated list on the chat interface. An API-key is a unique code that lets software connect directly to an AI provider’s system.

Software giant Microsoft announced in April that it would provide more than 200,000 tertiary education students in Singapore with free access to its Microsoft 365 premium plan, which typically costs $28.99 a month.

The plan includes Copilot, an AI assistant built into tools such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook to help users draft, summarise and analyse content.

Other local universities have also made available premium AI tools to their students for free, from August 2026.

Students at Nanyang Technological University have access to a suite of premium Google AI tools including Gemini Enterprise, Google AI Studio, and Vertex AI, while those at National University of Singapore can use ChatGPT Edu - a version built by OpenAI for universities and schools to use.

At the Singapore Management University, students use Google’s Gemini Education Plus.

With AI already being widely used by its students, SUTD said it wants them to develop their own judgement about its use.

“They should understand the strengths and limitations of different models, critically assess what the models produce, and recognise situations where doing the work themselves is important to learning,” it said.

Chee said the AI tools students have access to meet SUTD’s data protection requirements. This means prompts are not retained once a request is processed, and providers cannot use SUTD’s data to train their models.

The system also runs automated checks that scan messages for attempts to manipulate the AI, and automatically redacts sensitive information before they are processed. This includes phone numbers, ID numbers and other identifying details.

SUTD said it expects students to gain experience incorporating AI into what they design and build, as part of their studies.

Apart from using AI for learning and exploration, giving students access to different models for use in software, systems and other applications, can help them apply AI to solutions they create it added.

Chee said the AI tools offered range from lighter, faster models for everyday tasks and quick queries, to more advanced, resource-intensive ones for in-depth research and complex reasoning.

“The idea is to give faculty and students the right tool for the task, rather than defaulting everyone to the heaviest, most expensive model,” he said.