SINGAPORE – The National University of Singapore (NUS) and ST Engineering are collaborating on a $9 million multi-year research programme that seeks to develop technologies that will solve problems related to the building of smart cities in Singapore and around the world.

The programme will begin with two research projects: the Urban Traffic Flow Management project and the Enterprise Digital Platform (EDP).

The Urban Traffic Flow Management project will focus on alleviating traffic congestion using data and video analytics. Researchers will seek to solve traffic flow problems through solutions such as traffic state estimation and prediction.

This project will have future applications as autonomous vehicle technologies, 5G infrastructure and machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies start to mature and proliferate.

The EDP is a “flexible, modular and scalable artificial intelligence platform” that integrates the various requirements of cities and businesses in areas such as cyber security, data and hardware.

The research programme is headed by Associate Professor Aaron Chia from the NUS Faculty of Engineering’s Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Management, and Mr Jinson Xu, head of the Data Analytics Strategic Technology Centre at ST Engineering.

Speaking on the collaboration on Wednesday (Sept 16), Professor Chen Tsuhan, NUS Deputy President (Research & Technology), said: “As Singapore advances its position as a Smart Nation, having the right enterprise architecture to support those goals will determine if true digital transformation can be achieved.

“Over the years, NUS and ST Engineering have enjoyed a close and productive relationship. This new collaboration will combine NUS’ expertise in the science of cities with ST Engineering’s industry knowledge to co-create people-centric Smart City solutions that will form the foundational systems to bring about not just impactful but radical change to the lives of people in Singapore and the world,” he added.

Mr Harris Chan, chief digital officer and chief technology officer at ST Engineering, said: “This collaboration with NUS will allow us to delve deeper into the application of AI in new domains to catalyse the pipeline of next-generation technologies and solutions that address the evolving urban challenges that cities will continue to face. ”

Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative was launched in 2014. It seeks to encourage the use of digitisation and technology in addressing challenges in the health, education, transport, urban planning, and financial sectors.