Fusionopolis Two to spur cross-disciplinary innovation in one-north

A GREATER culture of cooperation and collaboration is expected with the addition of the S$450 million Fusionopolis Two building to the research and development (R&D) hub in one-north.

The Agency for Science, Technology and Research's (A*Star) Data Storage Institute, Institute of Microelectronics, Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, and the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology will be anchored at Fusionopolis Two.

Together with Fusionopolis One, the new facility will house six of A*Star's science and engineering research institutes, with one remaining on Jurong Island.

Currently, the Infocomm Research and the Institute of High Performance Computing are located at Fusionopolis One. And these two research institutes have established 19 joint labs with the industry since 2008.

The agency said its industry partner, Applied Materials, is slated to set up a second joint lab at Fusionopolis Two.

The relocation of some of the research institutes will bring together almost the entire A*Star family in one compact location at the Biopolis and Fusionopolis campuses in one-north, said Lim Chuan Poh, chairman of A*Star.

A*Star has 18 research institutes in total.

The new building, officially opened on Monday, is expected to provide co-location opportunities for research, innovation and enterprise, aimed at sparking inter-disciplinary collaborations between public and private-sector players.

Mr Lim noted that compared with five years ago, the number of industry projects grew by about five times to almost 7,500 projects in the first quarter of FY2015, while the number of licences increased by four times in the same period to almost 900. The number of startups also rose by nearly three times to 58.

"A*Star will work closely with other governmental agencies to anchor multinational corporation investments, increase absorptive capacity and competitiveness of large local enterprises, help small and medium enterprises transform and grow, and foster a vibrant startup ecosystem," said Mr Lim.

Png Cheong Boon, CEO of JTC Corporation, said the anchoring of the new clusters further enhances the value proposition of one-north as a bedrock of innovation. JTC is the developer of Fusionopolis One and Two.