SINGAPORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 21, 2026--
H2O.ai, a pioneer in sovereign AI and the world’s leading agentic and predictive AI company, and Certis Group, Singapore's leading advanced integrated solutions provider, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to scale the use of AI across Certis, focusing on the deployment of agentic and predictive capabilities in operational environments. This partnership will strengthen operational resilience, better decision-making and safety across complex infrastructure and urban operations.
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The MOU ceremony, attended by key executives from both organisations including H2O.ai Founder & CEO Sri Ambati, and Certis President & Group CEO Ng Tian Beng marks a significant milestone for both H2O.ai and Certis’ ongoing AI transformation journey. The collaboration will bring together both companies’ technologies, combining H2O.ai’s sovereign and predictive AI platform and capabilities with Certis’ Mozart AI orchestration platform. Together, they will deliver real-time situational awareness, risk anticipation, and operational planning across domains such as urban security, transportation, and critical infrastructure, while seamlessly coordinating people, processes, and autonomous systems in complex environments.
Sri Ambati, Founder & CEO of H2O.ai, said: "We are excited to collaborate with Certis, Singapore’s pioneering advanced integrated solutions provider. By combining H2O.ai’s sovereign and predictive AI capabilities with Certis', we can democratize AI for good, enabling more efficient and responsible AI deployments that address real-world challenges in safety and sustainability."
“At Certis, we operate in environments where decisions have real consequences, especially on safety, continuity, and public trust,” said Ng Tian Beng, President & Group CEO of Certis.
“As we scale our use of AI, the challenge is no longer experimentation, but how to standardise, govern, and industrialise AI reliably across operations. Partnering with H2O.ai strengthens our ability to do this responsibly, combining operational depth with robust AI capabilities,” he added.
Under the MOU, the two companies will explore joint initiatives, including:
This partnership aligns with Singapore's Smart Nation vision, supporting broader ambitions around building stronger AI infrastructure and democratising AI. This also builds on Certis' recent recognitions, including its leaders being named among H2O.ai's top 100 global AI influencers.
About H2O.ai
Founded in 2012, H2O.ai is on a mission to democratize AI. As the world’s leading agentic AI company, H2O.ai converges Generative and Predictive AI to help enterprises and public sector agencies develop purpose-built GenAI applications on their private data. With a focus on Sovereign AI—secure, compliant, and infrastructure-flexible deployments—H2O.ai delivers solutions that align with the highest standards of data privacy and control.
Its open-source technology is trusted by over 20,000 organizations worldwide, including more than half of the Fortune 500. H2O.ai powers AI transformation for companies like AT&T, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Singtel, Chipotle, Workday, Progressive Insurance, and NIH.
H2O.ai partners include NVIDIA, Dell Technologies, Deloitte, Ernst & Young (EY), Snowflake, AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), VAST Data and MinIO. H2O.ai’s AI for Good program supports nonprofit groups, foundations, and communities in advancing education, healthcare, and environmental conservation. With a vibrant community of 2 million data scientists worldwide, H2O.ai aims to co-create valuable AI applications for all users.
H2O.ai has raised $256 million from investors, including Commonwealth Bank, NVIDIA, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Capital One, Nexus Ventures and New York Life.
For more information, visit www.h2o.ai.
About Certis ( www.certisgroup.com )
Certis is a leading Singapore-based technology and services company that designs, builds and operates integrated smart operations across security, facilities and workforce management.
Guided by our Operational Design First philosophy, we combine deep operational expertise with advanced technologies, including AI, robotics and intelligent orchestration, to help organisations run safer, smarter and more sustainable operations. Our proprietary Mozart™ platform enables real-time visibility, coordination and control across complex environments, delivering measurable efficiency, performance and sustainability outcomes.
With headquarters in Singapore and operations in five markets across Asia Pacific and Qatar, Certis is trusted by government agencies, enterprises and partners around the world. Our 25,000-strong global team is committed to our purpose to make our world safer, smarter, better.
From Left to Right: Certis President & Group CEO, Ng Tian Beng, H2O.ai Founder & CEO Sri Ambati
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Until quite recently, the prevailing image to outsiders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been male missionaries wearing white shirts and name tags, evoked by the hit Broadway show “The Book of Mormon.”
But another unofficial face of the male-led church has emerged in American pop culture: digitally savvy, female influencers, often seen sporting athleisure, a giant soda in hand — and varying degrees of adherence to church teachings.
These influencers have found an enthusiastic audience across the country, curious about their faith and families. Some explain the tenets of what's widely known as the Mormon church, but others bring attention to the rules they often break — drinking alcohol, having premarital sex and in one high-profile instance, a “soft-swinging” scandal that birthed the hugely popular Hulu reality series, “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
ABC sought to capitalize on that interest by casting “Mormon Wives” star Taylor Frankie Paul in “The Bachelorette,” but recently had to scuttle the already filmed season after a video of a domestic violence incident surfaced.
These viral moments and “Mormon Wives” project a version of the faith that appears more progressive and lenient than church leadership and other Latter-day Saint influencers might like. “The internet really challenged the church’s ability to maintain its own narratives about itself,” said Nancy Ross, an associate professor at Utah Tech University who studies Mormon feminism.
The church has worked to distance itself from “Mormon Wives,” issuing a statement ahead of the first season’s premiere in 2024 without naming the show specifically. It said that some media portrayals of Latter-day Saint women resort to “stereotypes or gross misrepresentations that are in poor taste and have real-life consequences for people of faith.”
Camille N. Johnson, the president of the church’s Relief Society organization for women, said in an emailed statement that it’s important to seek out trusted sources of information about the church and its members in light of recent media attention.
“Millions of Latter-day Saint women around the world strive to live faith-filled lives grounded in a love for God and all of His children,” she said.
It would be impossible for the “Mormon Wives” cast to fully represent millions of women in the church. But they are not the only Latter-day Saint influencers online — nor are they the only ones with large followings.
Many are women in their early twenties who are married with young children. They post about young motherhood and experiences like buying a house before they turn 25. Lauren Yarro, a Latter-day Saint content creator and podcast host, said she can see this being a foreign image to some.
“Our culture is fascinating to an outsider, and I can understand why it would pull people in,” she said. “That Mormon timeline is intriguing to the rest of the world. I think most people innately have a desire for a happy marriage and a happy family life and we tend to create those in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
The beliefs and practices of church members have often been the subject of intense interest and scrutiny because of how they differ from other religions. Some of these include the belief that church leadership can receive revelations from God, or the practice of wearing garments under clothing that have deep religious significance.
Latter-day Saint influencers are not a new phenomenon, but they have found staying power by driving pop culture discourse and documenting their lifestyles. Many of them use content creation as a way to be stay-at-home parents while also generating income for their families. Several prominent creators live in Utah, the home of the church’s administrative and cultural hub, but there is a broad spectrum in terms of how much they bring their faith into their content.
While “Mormon Wives” and its controversial star, Paul, have been the recent high-profile drivers of public interest, the cast talks about the church only sparingly. Rosemary Avance, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University whose research includes religious identity and digital media, said “there’s so little reference” to the cast's faith once people are hooked on the show from its title. Many cast members have left the church or are no longer active in it.
“It was clearly a marketing strategy on behalf of the people putting these shows together. They think that’ll draw people in, and it does,” she said. “It’s not like you have these women sitting down talking about their secret temple practices that they’re not supposed to speak about, or challenging the authority of the church in some way. They’re just not talking about it.”
Avance sees parallels between now and about 15 years ago, when Republican Mitt Romney was running for president and “The Book of Mormon” debuted on Broadway. At the time, people wanted to know “what’s going on behind the scenes in Mormonism,” she said.
“People think they know a lot about it (Mormonism), and they’ve heard a lot about it because there’s prominent stories and prominent people who are well-known and those narratives are circulated, but it’s almost always second-, third-hand,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know any Mormons and may never meet a Mormon, or if they have, they don’t know it, and so it’s what you’ve heard and the preconceptions you think you have about Mormonism.”
Creators like Yarro, who speak about their faith openly online and closely follow the church's teachings, said “Mormon Wives” does not feel representative of their experiences in the church or their lives in Utah. The Latter-day Saint content creators who spoke with The Associated Press emphasized they don't place fault on the individual cast members, but rather the production of the show and the way it Hollywoodizes their faith. Representatives for Hulu did not respond to a request for comment.
“The only thing I don’t like about what they do is sometimes they will play on things, twist things, use what is sacred to us as members of the church, and they’ll put it out and it feels like mockery to us,” said Shayla Egan, another Latter-day Saint content creator.
Some of the more devout members use their online platforms to respond to and course-correct more salacious social media content or “Mormon Wives” storylines they believe don't align with their understanding of church teachings or experiences.
Mimi Bascom, a Latter-day Saint content creator who says the mission behind her social media presence is to “show that members of the church are real people,” often makes videos responding to “Mormon Wives” clips. She finds the show to be a “net positive for our church” since it gives everyday members the opportunity to “share what we actually believe and get that more out there into the world,” she said.
Bascom, for one, had always prepared to serve on a mission but no longer could after getting married. Making content about the church has felt like a way she's “able to still live that out,” she said.
“We want to be missionaries and spread the good word of the Gospel,” she continued, “and so this is just another way we can do it.”
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
FILE - The sun sets behind the Mormon Temple, the centerpiece of Temple Square, in Salt Lake City, April 27, 2006. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, File)
FILE - Jen Affleck, from left, Layla Taylor, Miranda McWhorter, and Jessi Draper Ngatikaura participate in Hulu's "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" photo call at The Rink at Rockefeller Plaza, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025, in New York. (Photo by CJ Rivera/Invision/AP, File)
