JTC’s next-gen estate signals Singapore’s push to lead in advanced manufacturing

SINGAPORE – Singapore industrial landlord JTC Corporation is laying the groundwork for the Republic to develop a world-class advanced manufacturing ecosystem, the kind many countries are now racing to build, in a bid to draw global tech talent and investment.

But the competition to dominate cutting-edge technology has grown far more complex. Companies that governments around the world are trying to attract are no longer making investment decisions based on cost alone.

As the global economy fractures along geopolitical fault lines, these next-generation manufacturing companies are now seeking locations that ensure some degree of supply chain resilience.

Factors such as the host country’s focus and policy framework on sustainability, research and innovation have also become more critical than ever before.

This has prompted many countries to roll out comprehensive investment strategies to draw these companies. In Singapore, the Economic Development Board leads the nation’s investment promotion and industry development efforts.

Singapore has long understood that beyond these factors, its infrastructure readiness can provide it with the competitive edge to compensate for its small size and lack of natural resources.

JTC has been performing this function for nearly 60 years – providing industries with plug-and-play facilities equipped with ready infrastructure, enabling businesses to move in quickly and focus on their operations.

Since the early 2000s, research institutes and academia have been integrated into its estates to ensure that companies can pilot products and kick-start production in a seamless manner.

Today, it operates several industrial estates and business and technology parks for Singapore’s key manufacturing sectors such as petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, transport engineering and semiconductors.

But advanced manufacturing is not an industrial sector on its own. It is broadly defined as the innovation of improved methods for manufacturing existing products, and the production of new products enabled by technologies such as automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing and internet of things.

Companies that harness advanced manufacturing capabilities hope to enhance their productivity, efficiency and sustainability.

This means that these firms will need even closer collaboration with other innovation-intensive companies and research institutes.

With that in mind, JTC launched Jurong Innovation District (JID) – a 600ha next-generation industrial estate located along Singapore’s western manufacturing belt. Being phased in since 2019, JID is expected to create 95,000 new jobs in research, innovation and advanced manufacturing when fully completed.

And in October 2025,

it completed Bulim Square

– a development comprising four blocks of five- and six-storey buildings that offer over 110,000 sq m of ready, sustainable factory space to the advanced manufacturing ecosystem.

“It is not just the space, it is really putting them (companies) into an ecosystem where they have access to a value chain – from suppliers to research and to talent,” Ms Christine Wong, JTC’s assistant chief executive officer, told The Straits Times in an interview.

Companies moving into Bulim Square will find physical proximity to research institutes, capabilities developers, technology and training providers across the five JID precincts, she said.

They will also have access to a 32,000-strong pool of science, technology, engineering and mathematics talent from Nanyang Technological University and a growing number of start-ups.

“The idea for JID is actually to integrate research solutions, technology solutions providers and manufacturing, all in one location.”

However, the concept of Bulim Square is a bit more nuanced, said Ms Wong.

“Typically, across JTC’s history of providing infrastructure, we always make sure that there is both land and space. Land for larger companies that want to build their customised facilities, such as chipmakers in the four wafer parks we operate,” she said.

“But there are also companies that come in and want the plug-and-play solution. They want to start within six months. So, we need to build a space that is fit for purpose.”

This is what Bulim Square is about.

Ms Wong said that compared with typical industrial buildings, Bulim Square has more advanced specifications, such as higher ceilings, wider corridors, and larger and heavier lifts for loading.

This helps companies that need to move heavy machinery in and out fast and to reconfigure the floor plan to accommodate the next equipment they are bringing in for testing, for example.

Bulim Square will be connected to JID’s unique logistics network – unlike other industrial parks, most of the heavy traffic across JID will be underground.

This will be Singapore’s first dedicated underground district logistics network, which will be developed to increase the efficiency of goods movement while freeing up spaces above ground for business and community use.

The first phase of the network was completed in January 2025, and phase two is targeted for completion in 2029.

The space freed up on the ground will feature an 11km Sky Corridor for pedestrians, cyclists and autonomously driven shuttles.

At Bulim, and across JID, companies can leverage support from synergistic partners to exchange knowledge and tap resource-sharing platforms to expedite their technology adoption and enhance capability development.

The tenants will be supported by the Ecosystem Partnership Incentive – a government initiative aimed at accelerating advanced manufacturing clustering and strengthening supply chains in JID.

They can partner A*STAR’s research institutes in JID, such as the A*STAR Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, A*STAR Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre, and A*STAR National Metrology Centre.

A Digital Design Innovation Centre, supported by the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster, will help companies digitalise their manufacturing supply chain by developing digital inventories for physical spare parts and cost-effective parts for additive manufacturing.

Early entrants at Bulim Square include Meridionale Impianti – an Italian engineering firm that provides services for designing, building and maintaining complex systems at major semiconductor plants worldwide; and KY Sub-Assembly Engineering, a home-grown precision engineering specialist that serves multinational corporations across the island such as Halliburton, Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney.

The larger JID ecosystem houses companies such as Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Centre Singapore and Japan’s high-performance bicycle component maker Shimano.

On competition for high-tech investments, Ms Wong said cost cannot be Singapore’s main competitive advantage.

“But what we have here – the innovation ecosystem, the research institutes – I don’t think you can really find it elsewhere across South-east Asia.”

And on how JTC fits into this, Ms Wong said: “Ultimately, our role is to build and curate an enabling ecosystem that helps companies connect with the right partners quickly.

“By integrating research, capability developers, solutions providers and manufacturing together in JID, we will help firms shorten their development cycles and scale their operations with greater certainty.”