ST Eng, NUS partner on $9m programme for Singapore's smart future

It kicks off with two research projects on AI and traffic management.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) and ST Engineering are collaborating on a $9 million, multi-year advanced digital technologies research programme for the creation of a people-centric, smart future for Singapore, according to a press release.

Research efforts of this new programme will focus on technologies related to Smart City as well as Smart Maintenance, Repairs and Overhaul (MRO), covering five areas: resource optimisation and scheduling; prescriptive analytics; decision and sense-making; reasoning engine and machine learning; as well as digital twin.

In particular, the programme will reportedly focus on two key research projects to lay the foundations for digital transformation and Industry 4.0 The first is the Enterprise Digital Platform (EDP), an AI platform that will support all AI methodological areas to enable synthesis of disparate data sources and other systems.

All AI models derived from research projects under this programme will be integrated onto a common AI engine stacked within the EDP.

The second project is the Urban Traffic Flow Management, where researchers will develop algorithms that alleviate traffic congestion using data analytics and AI technologies. These include traffic state estimation and prediction, in addition to effective active traffic control and management strategies identification and implementation.

It will also consider future applications such as autonomous vehicle technologies, 5G infrastructure and machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies.

The programme is helmed by Associate Professor Aaron Chia from the NUS Faculty of Engineering's Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Management as its director. Jinson Xu, Head of the Data Analytics Strategic Technology Centre at ST Engineering will serve as its co-director.