BARCELONA (Spain) • Central to Singapore's artificial intelligence (AI) strategy is the 50ha Punggol Digital District, announced in January last year by Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean.

The district will house a business park being developed by national industrial estate developer JTC to create a mini Silicon Valley, where cyber-security and technology firms will be located.

The Singapore Institute of Technology's new campus will be in the district by 2023. It will be among the first buildings to be ready there, contributing to some 28,000 digital-economy jobs expected to be generated there.

Locating students, faculty and industry professionals together allows for greater collaboration. For instance, new ideas conceived in the Singapore Institute of Technology could be test-bedded in the companies there, enabling products to come onto the market faster. Some government agencies, such as the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore in Maxwell Road, will also move there.

JTC is working with the Government Technology Agency, the agency behind tech transformation in the public sector in Singapore, to build a 3D map of the entire estate for predictive maintenance, and to explore the use of robots that are controlled remotely to manage emergencies, such as putting out small fires.

Irene Tham