Advancing innovation through R&D the A*STAR way

Abstract

I. NEED FOR RELENTLESS INNOVATION THROUGH R&D The need to innovate in this rapidly changing economy to create new and higher value is given. At the Agency for Science, Technology and Research A STAR , innovation is our raison d’etre to help create the future of Singapore. Data Storage Institute DSI is one of A STAR’s research institutes RIs . It was established to support the growth of the data storage industry in Singapore. In the early days of DSI in the 1990s, one in two disk-drives worldwide was made in Singapore. Over time, the production of such diskdrives began to move to lower cost countries. DSI continued to develop new capabilities and innovate and supported the shift of the data storage industries toward higher value-added activities. Today, eight out of ten higher value-added high-end enterprise drives and nearly five out of ten hard disk media are manufactured in Singapore. These growth and success of the data storage industry in Singapore have also persuaded key industry players, such as Seagate, Fujitsu, EMC, Seiko, and Nitto Denko, to establish corporate R&D laboratories in Singapore. Seiko and Nitto Denko, in particular, are now colocated with DSI in Fusionopolis—the science and engineering hub in Singapore. We are mindful that these companies will remain in Singapore for as long as we continue to offer a competitive value proposition. This is why DSI has to continue to look ahead to build capabilities to support the key industry players on developing next-generation products such as cost-competitive nonvolatile memory devices and high density magnetic storage at 10 Tbytes / in.2. The challenge therefore is how to do this right by leveraging on what little natural or man-made advantages that Singapore has to sustain Singapore’s competitive advantage. This is the only way for us to achieve our mission to foster world-class research and talent for Singapore in this knowledge-based and innovation-driven world, and it is how we can contribute toward establishing Singapore as Asia’s innovation capital.