How Singapore turns billion-dollar science research into real-world success

SINGAPORE – Singapore launched its first Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) roadmap in 2010, supported by a budget of $16.1 billion, to outline the nation's priorities in research and technology.

It has been 15 years since that initial launch.

In 2026, the National Research Foundation is expected to publish its RIE2025 report to document the country’s progress over the most recent five-year period from April 2021 to March 2026. NRF will also release its full RIE2030 plan to set out goals and priorities for the next five years with a new budget of $37 billion.

The Straits Times recaps some of the success stories that emerged from Singapore’s RIE efforts.

Mencast Marine

Founded in 1981 as a four-man operation designing and manufacturing propellers for tugboats and fast-boats, Mencast Marine’s production process depended on raw materials such as sand and bronze alloy ingots, imported from as far away as Europe.

The propellers, typically between 1m and 3m in diameter, are made by melting the ingots into sand moulds in a process known as sand casting. It has also relied on engineers for its labour-intensive production process.

In 2023, the home-grown firm tapped Singapore’s research ecosystem, partnering Enterprise Singapore and A*STAR to incorporate artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing – more commonly known as 3D-printing – into its operations. These technologies have been earmarked for growth under RIE.

Mencast tapped the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC), a national platform hosted by A*STAR driving the adoption of 3D printing.

Its productivity increased by up to 30 per cent through an automated process where robotic nozzles build the propellers using layers of bronze alloy. This cuts the time needed for producing each propeller – which could take up to a month using sand casting – to just two weeks.

The process also reduces the carbon footprint of a 200kg propeller by 36 per cent, or 1,743kg of CO2.

In 2023, Singapore’s first 3D-printed marine propeller was created.

The propeller was also certified the world’s first fully additively manufactured propeller with Lloyd’s Register and the American Bureau of Shipping.

The company is also exploring the use of generative AI to design more efficient propellers.

Horizon Quantum

One milestone in RIE2025 was the establishment of a coordinated national strategy to establish Singapore as a key player in the global quantum supply chain and ecosystem.

This focus established Singapore as a hub for nurturing quantum computing start-ups, one of which is Horizon Quantum.

Founded in 2018, the deep-tech start-up develops tools for software developers without experience in quantum computing – where the properties of sub-atomic particles are used to solve problems too complex for traditional computers – to build quantum software applications.

Horizon Quantum’s platform was developed by Singapore University of Technology and Design Associate Professor Joe Fitzsimons, who co-founded the company with SUTD post-doctoral research fellow Tan Si-Hui.

SGInnovate (SGI) – a venture builder backed by the Government – saw opportunities in the technology, given the highly complex nature of programming quantum, which requires highly skilled physicists.

SGI led Horizon Quantum’s first institutional fund raising in 2018 with investors from US and Japan. The firm closed at a post-money valuation of US$4.1 million (S$5.2 million).

SGI also provided advice in company structure and hiring strategy, and facilitated Horizon Quantum's 2023 fund-raising round, which raised US$18.1 million.

Horizon Quantum became a key node in the National Quantum Safe Network, a nationwide cybersecurity initiative to shield the country’s critical digital infrastructure from future risks posed by quantum computing.

In January, the local start-up set up Singapore’s first commercial quantum computer for hire in one-north, boosting the nation’s goal of achieving breakthrough applications. In March, Horizon Quantum was listed on Nasdaq, with a market capitalisation of US$567 million.

PRECISE

Precision Health Research, Singapore (PRECISE) was set up in 2021 to coordinate the Government’s efforts to implement Singapore’s 10-year National Precision Medicine programme, a globally recognised RIE-funded initiative.

Precision medicine refers to a targeted approach to disease treatment and prevention, and takes into account individual differences in genes, environments and lifestyles.

The first of three phases saw the creation of a pilot database of 10,000 Singaporean genomes between 2017 and 2019.

Phase 2, which ran from 2022 to 2025, involved mapping the DNA of 100,000 healthy Singapore residents to deepen the understanding of Asian diseases.

Under Phase 3, launched in 2025, PRECISE will partner public healthcare clusters NHG Health, the National University Health System and SingHealth to enrol between 400,000 and 450,000 patients with a wide range of health conditions.

This will allow researchers to study how genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors interact in real-world clinical settings, and deepen the understanding of disease progression to provide customised treatment and care for each patient.

PREPARE

Launched in 2022 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Programme for Research in Epidemic Preparedness and Response (PREPARE) is a five-year, $100 million national research and development initiative.

Now managed by the Communicable Diseases Agency, PREPARE unites experts in epidemiology, vaccine development and other disciplines to fortify Singapore against future infectious disease outbreaks.

PREPARE is led by Wang Linfa, a professor in the emerging infectious diseases programme at Duke-NUS Medical School. It is currently building a national repository of advanced respiratory tissue models, in collaboration with the Academic Respiratory Initiative for Pulmonary Health, a centre under the Nanyang Technological University’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.

To be housed at PREPARE, the repository aims to not only contribute to Singapore’s pandemic preparedness, but also aid in the development of personalised treatments, research into lung diseases, drug screening and testing of new treatments.