Research in digital science will lead to computers with a 'sixth sense'.
By
Serene Luo
The new Advanced Digital Sciences Centre, opened Thursday, sets out to do is a lot more massive and global. -- PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
IN THE foreseeable future, information in all sorts of worldwide databases will be linked together and will be a treasure trove of information.
A doctor who needs information to treat a patient with a rare cancer, for instance, can tap on medical journals, hospital records and even insurance records to tell his patient what can be done for him, which hospital has the most experience at it, and how much it may cost him to treat.
Policy-makers can, at any one point in time, take an overall view of a population's job status and earnings, and see if its new social welfare regulations are effective.
Parents can immediately take stock of the latest news about education, and see how their children's performance compares to, say, the national average.
All it requires is a quick exploratory thought to a computer system, which gives the user an almost instantaneous 'background check' on the options available to him.
Some of this information and data-mining is available on a small scale, or in research labs now, but what the new Advanced Digital Sciences Centre, opened Thursday, sets out to do is a lot more massive and global.
It will be as seamless and intuitive, just like a human's 'sixth sense', officials from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said, as the program is named after.
The university, which has groomed many famous alumni such as the people who invented YouTube and PayPal, will be working with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star).
A*Star will put in US$50 million over five years to the partnership, while the University of Illinois will bring in its expert faculty to lead the research.
The centre's new director, Professor Benjamin Wah, said he hoped to show results in two years.
He added that the commercial benefits to Singapore would be 'much more' than the amount put in now.
Yet, the key challenges the team faces now is getting their foot in the door, to gain access to the very information they are trying to mine, he said.
