The Duke-NUS Centre for Outbreak Preparedness (COP) works to strengthen communicable disease preparedness and response capacity across South and Southeast Asia. COP also hosts the Asia Pathogen Genomics Initiative (Asia PGI), a regional network supporting 15 countries to strengthen pathogen genomics surveillance, data use and translation for public health action. The Duke-NUS Centre for Biomedical Data Science (CBDS) provides a strategic hub for data science, artificial intelligence, statistical methodology, computational omics and systems biology, supporting biomedical discovery and translational impact across Duke-NUS, SingHealth, the Academic Medical Centre and wider regional and global partners. This joint appointment will advance research and platform development at the interface of AI and pathogen genomics, bringing together COP’s applied focus on infectious disease threats and regional preparedness with CBDS’s depth in biomedical data science, AI and computational biology.