A*Star's research capabilities expand to new industries

[SINGAPORE] Singapore's research capabilities are being employed in a growing number of industries.迷你倉"We are increasingly working with new industry clusters," Lim Chuan Poh, chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), told BT, citing finance services, marine and offshore, and high-performance computing as examples.A*Star's activities - centred in its Biopolis and Fusionopolis research hubs - focus on the biomedical, engineering and physical sciences. It has 18 research units - 10 biomedical and eight in the physical sciences."In the past, we didn't talk to them," he said of the financial sector. But with more than 4,200 researchers and engineers - 40 per cent of whom come from some 60 countries - A*Star has the strongest research capabilities in Singapore, he said."If you're in the financial sector, you would want access to data analytics. We work with Visa, for instance. If you're running Visa credit cards, you'd want to know who amongst your customers are likely to default . . . and that you can derive through data analytics.""So we are, right now, talking to a number of banks and we are working with them."A*Star also works with taxi operators, among other parties that seek the ability to analyse huge amounts of data. Information on taxi journeys can help cab operators better deploy their drivers to meet public commuting needs."The use of analytics in manufacturing has also reached a different level," he said.A*Star's work with Boeing, for instance, aims at servicing the aircraft manufacturer's machines "just at the right time before the machine breaks down".The idea is to prevent machine failures that lead to costly disruptions on the shopfloor, Mr Lim said. "On the other hand, you don't want to do preventive maintenance too early because then you're not optimising your maintenance and, in fact, you increase the costs. So the trick is always to do it just before the breaking down, and with sensors, sensor fusion and data analytics, you actually can push the envelope."And earlier this year, a team from A*Star's Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) took part in the GE Flight Quest Challenge, open to the global data community.mini storageThe challenge was to come up with a solution that lets airlines better predict flight arrival times and reduce passenger delays.The Singapore team beat more than 170 teams from around the world to take the top prize. Their solution produced flight arrival estimates that were 40 per cent better than predictions from air traffic controllers."So the team won US$100,000, which is very nice, but the real prize is that GE is now working with the team to pilot the solution because . . . the (potential) savings for the airport operations could be US$23 billion a year," he said.Meanwhile, in semiconductor manufacturing, Applied Materials chose to site its advanced 3D chip-packaging research centre - the most advanced facility of its kind in the world - here in a joint lab with A*Star's Institute of Microelectronics.And in the automotive industry, "65 per cent of the value and increasing, comes from electronics", he pointed out."We don't have to be involved in making the frame and all that but we just need to be involved in the onboard electronics, the control systems, sensors system, we have a big industry of that in Singapore. That's why we have an automotive consortium focusing on the electronics, that's why we are keen to go into autonomous vehicles, because it's all about the electronics.""And that's the kind of space we can play in; it feeds off our research in this space. We don't have to invent anew, it's just cross-applications, and once you have your deep research, there are many paths to application."The marine and offshore sector is another "very fast growing" research area in Singapore, said Mr Lim. A prime example here is Lloyd's Register's S$70 million joint laboratory with the Institute of High Performance Computing at Fusionopolis. "This is their single largest investment outside the UK," he noted. The collaboration also extends to work at the National University of Singapore."You see, we work very collaboratively with the universities, we don't just rely on A*Star; this ability to organise across the public sector creates a lot of value. One of our greatest value creations is that the players in the R&D landscape are able to work well together."儲存