(Left to Right) Mr Vassilios Kroustallis, Senior Vice President, Global Business Development, ABS;
Mr Matthieu de Tugny, President, Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore;
Mr Yukihito Fujinami, Corporate Officer, Director of Research Institute, ClassNK;
Prof Lim Keng Hui, Assistant Chief Executive, Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR);
Mr Chee Hong Tat, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Transport;
Mr Frederick Chew, Chief Executive Officer, A*STAR;
Mrs Eleni Polychronopoulou, President and Chief Executive Officer, METIS Cyberspace Technology;
Mr Hideki Suzuki, Adviser, MTI Co. Ltd;
Mr Jimmy Koh, Head of Pilotage and Digital Transformation, PSA Marine;
Mr Chua Chye Poh, Founder, ShipsFocus

Master Agreement Framework inked between A*STAR and seven industry partners, under the Maritime AI Research Programme, to co-develop AI and other digital technologies for a safer, more efficient and more sustainable maritime industry.

SINGAPORE – The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) has established a Centre for Maritime Digitalisation (A*STAR’s C4MD) to develop advanced digital solutions for smart shipping, port systems and decarbonisation. The new centre aims to increase sustainability, safety and efficiency in Singapore’s maritime ecosystem, by translating research capabilities in computational modelling, simulation and artificial intelligence (AI) into deployable maritime solutions.

The centre, led by A*STAR’s Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC), will partner Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), industry partners and public sector agencies on collaborative research in key areas such as:

• Studying various scenarios in the electrification of harbour crafts and their impact on infrastructure and operational activities in Singapore waters.

• Decarbonising the maritime sector with sustainable technologies, for example using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in tidal turbine designs to convert kinetic energy of moving water into green electricity.

• Conducting CFD-based risk assessments and mitigation for the safe use and storage of alternative fuels.

• Detecting near-collision events of ship manoeuvring in port waters and providing AI models and explainable outputs to reduce traffic safety risks.

• Improving efficiency by advancing AI research in areas including Just In Time (JIT) operations, predictive maintenance, emissions monitoring and reduction, and supply chain intelligence.