The drivers behind Singapore's RIE 2020

Prof Low Teck Seng, CEO, National Research Foundation (NRF), who was guest of honour at the at the Imec Technology Forum Southeast Asia in Singapore, said that whatever Singapore invests in, the country must "strive to be the very best and compete with the very best".

Low said Singapore is creating the right conditions for market-viable innovation.

Low said that Singapore is investing S$19 billion over the next five years, or 1% of GDP. "Very few countries in the world match us for government spending on research," he said. "As a percentage of spend it is very high...we'll fund very good science but it must have a relevance to us in Singapore."

As Singapore moves towards 2020, Low said that the hope is for an entire ecosystem that supports  industrial growth in a win-win manner. "If we ask the right questions and Singapore is the best place to do it then we have all the ingredients for success," he said.

Interested?

Read the TechTrade Asia blog posts about imec's new 5G chips and imec's smart tech strategy, as well as the report on new initiatives in Singapore to boost innovation announced at SWITCH 2017

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