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In this column we summarize Singapore's major research efforts involving AI, which are mostly funded by government agencies and mainly conducted at the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University, Singapore University of Technology and Design, and the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research. Our focus in this column is primarily limited to the efforts of Singapore to become a smart nation. The key areas of AI research summarized here include mobility, security, manufacturing, and health care.
Artificial intelligence (AI) research in Singapore is focused on accelerating the country's development into a smart nation. Specifically, AI has been employed extensively in either augmenting the intelligence of humans or in developing automated methods and systems to improve quality of life in Singapore. AI research has been mainly conducted at research institutes (universities and labs), including the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore Management University (SMU), Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), and the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A·STAR).
Most AI research in Singapore is funded by government agencies, such as the National Research Foundation (NRF), the Ministry of Education (MOE), and the A·STAR Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC). In addition, there are also translational research projects that are funded by ministries (Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Defense), defense research centers (Defense Science and Technology Agency [DSTA] and Defense Science Organization [DSO]) and also industry.
Historically, AI research in Singapore has been focused on applications to health care and robotics, with research directions focused on graphical models, neural networks, and fuzzy systems. AI research in Singapore is for the most part a phenomenon of the the last two decades. Owing to the focus on becoming a smart nation, Singapore has seen a surge in applications related to mobility, security, manufacturing, health, and sustainable, resilient systems. In this column, we primarily describe the research that has focused on assisting the development of a smart nation. While there are many other domains where researchers in Singapore are currently conducting AI research, we focus on the key areas of mobility, security, manufacturing, and health care.
Mobility
Due to limited land availability, Singapore has always been interested in developing efficient transportation models for people and freight. AI...