Opinion: Our Competitive Edge – Harnessing Emerging Technologies for a Resilient and Sustainable Singapore

Singapore has long served as a global case study for cities and countries looking at integrating innovative technology driven urban solutions on the path towards growth and resilience. Our momentum on this journey has been a result of deliberate planning, strategic investments and a robust Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) strategy that aligns government, industry and academia in a shared vision for development that focuses on impact and fosters adaptability.

In our pursuit of liveability, sustainability and a competitive economy amid 21st-century challenges such as resource constraints and climate change, new vistas of growth and models of innovation are needed. Many agree that new, emerging technologies ranging from quantum computing to cell-based agriculture and nuclear fusion potentially hold the key to moving forward, but how can we ensure that Singapore is ready to build and support the innovators translating these innovations into real-world solutions?

Leveraging Our Key Innovation Enablers

Fundamentally, we can attribute the development of Singapore’s innovation ecosystem to a combination of five key enablers, the first of which is our strong government support for research and development. This is best exemplified by our RIE plans which are laid out every five years, charting the course for all translation, commercialisation and innovation strategies at a national level. Identifying these strategic technology domains has enabled Singapore to respond quickly to new priorities and seed capabilities in a steady and sustained manner.

Our relative political and economic stability have served as a bedrock to build a hub for startup investments. With over 500 venture capital firms and more than 220 incubators and accelerators, Singapore is now one of the top destinations for funding and startup development, accounting for nearly 70% of all venture capital raised in Southeast Asia.

This, together with other factors, namely our progressive regulatory approach, robust IP protection frameworks and world-class talent, has helped to maintain our competitive edge. Our openness to new ideas and technologies, from cell-cultured meat to FinTech sandboxes, has earned us a global reputation as an ideal place for testbedding and enabled a strong culture of innovation to take root.

Innovation Districts as Strategic Infrastructure

Complementing this, Singapore’s approach to strategic infrastructure planning saw the development of innovation districts like one-north and Singapore Science Park, which are purposefully designed to co-locate research institutes and universities, multinational companies, venture capitals and incubators to foster innovation and academic-industry synergy for high-value sectors.

For example, take the co-location of the National University of Singapore's Global Research and Innovation programme with BLOCK71 at one-north, which was intended to facilitate the cross-pollination of ideas, seamless collaboration and lower costs through shared access to resources. Such a set-up has supported the growth of numerous startups within the immediate innovation ecosystem, such as lithium-ion battery recycling company NEU Battery Materials. The startup benefited from ready access and close proximity to venture-building support, mentorship, industry connections and potential investors. As a result, in 2023, it successfully raised an oversubscribed S$4.9 million seed round led by SGInnovate.

Building on the impact of such hubs, our government recently announced that it will commit S$1 billion to refresh our biosciences and medtech infrastructure at one-north, and build a new national fabrication facility for research and development that will offer access to industry-grade prototyping tools. These continued investments ensure our innovation ecosystem remains agile and able to support the needs of all stakeholders in the vicinity.

Priority Areas in Emerging Technologies

Many lessons can be drawn from today’s biggest disruptors and challengers, who have completely upended traditional business models, making us rethink how we use and interact with technology. For instance, ride-hailing applications have reshaped the way people and goods move in urban environments, while mRNA vaccines have transformed the way we combat emerging infectious diseases, as they deliver more targeted immune responses and can be developed quickly for mass production. To help Singapore prepare for the next chapter of its innovation journey, strategic roadmaps are in place to offer a longer-term perspective on the development of key emerging technologies, and to shape initiatives aimed at nurturing our own generation of disruptive companies.

For instance, Singapore’s work to build expertise in the quantum domain, which began in 2002, was recently given a S$300 million shot in the arm as part of the National Quantum Strategy to cover various ambitions from building our own quantum processors to quantum sensing. Notable startups like Horizon Quantum, SpeQtral and Atomionics have since emerged, driven by support from SGInnovate, with Horizon Quantum en route to establishing a first-of-a-kind quantum computing hardware testbed by 2025. Similar promising companies have established themselves in other priority sectors. SunGreenH2 has developed proprietary nanostructured materials for hydrogen electrolysers, capable of higher hydrogen output while consuming less energy, all without the need for expensive platinum group metals. Such a game changer for wide-scale green hydrogen adoption will be a key enabler of our National Hydrogen Strategy and a linchpin for many countries to meet their decarbonisation targets.

SGInnovate has supported quantum tech startups like pQCee, who developed inoQulate — a software application that adds a layer of quantum authentication to any Adobe PDF document (SGInnovate)

Cultivating People for a Competitive, Deep Tech Ecosystem

While we can facilitate innovation and research to build these great companies, having the right people will always be a major factor in the success of these endeavours. Just as deep tech companies are building solutions for global problems, the competition for the corresponding talent and skills required in areas such as AI, quantum computing and biotechnology is similarly global. Such challenges are especially acute for early-stage companies, and with such products and solutions themselves being very nascent, the people equipped with both the technical and business know-how to grow such a company—and ability to do it again—are in extremely short supply.

Talent is one of the biggest limiting factors to growing any innovation ecosystem, and Singapore has largely approached this challenge in two ways—by building a sustainable pipeline of local talent through high-quality education, training and upskilling, and supplementing this by attracting world-class global talent.

Coordinating and facilitating the flow of talent into local emerging tech startups at different stages needs to be approached with an ecosystem-level perspective. SGInnovate curates and consolidates these efforts by working with public sector agencies and national platforms, such as the National Robotics Programme and the National Quantum Office, to avoid cannibalisation and duplication. For early exposure to startups, platforms such as the Summation programme collaborate with partners to place STEM students into apprenticeships at local deep tech startups to work on technical projects alongside mentors. At the same time, mentorship, business support services and resources for founders such as Tech@SG are increasingly available to help develop more senior-level talent. Jointly administered by the Singapore Economic Development Board and Enterprise Singapore, Tech@SG aims to help fast-growing tech companies access the global talent they need to grow and scale their businesses in Singapore and the region.55 This is complemented by new initiatives such as ONE Pass that strengthen Singapore's ability to attract leading innovators and technical experts.56,57 Another example is the Tech.Pass visa, which allows established tech entrepreneurs and technical experts from around the world to come to Singapore to perform frontier and disruptive innovations.

Tracking the impact of such interventions is still in its early days, but an ecosystem-level platform such as Deep Tech Central could offer a more complete picture of the data. This would also allow SGInnovate and our partners to better understand the movement of people and skills at various stages of their career, and across different institutions and sectors. With time, the insights gained can provide a much clearer perspective on the gaps our startups face, and in turn help to coordinate our responses nationally.

Mentoring Summation apprentices at local medtech startup Castomize, a spinoff from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SGInnovate)

Collaborations and Partnerships — A Blueprint for a Sustainable, Future-Ready City

Over 97% of deep tech ventures contribute to meeting one or more of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals,59 often by merging innovations from diverse fields in unique ways. This cannot be achieved without close collaboration from all players in the ecosystem, and Singapore’s ability to assemble people and activate resources quickly is, after all, one of our unique strengths.

Numerous initiatives have been announced or are currently underway at the national level — including plans to train talent in the quantum and nuclear fusion space, as well as platforms such as the National Graduate Research Innovation Programme to nurture deep tech startups from across all research performers in Singapore. Together, these collaborative efforts are aimed at fostering relationships between industry and academia, and greater alignment across institutions to not only sharpen Singapore’s technological edge but also shed light on our path towards net zero emissions.

Our journey towards building a sustainable and competitive city is an ongoing process, and the interconnectedness of our startup ecosystem remains key to this vision. The groundwork has already been laid, all that remains is to realise the potential of what we have built.