Rekindling Exploratory Research
Ms He Ting Ru: Madam, Singapore’s research and development (R&D) landscape has a reputation for efficiency and the announcements in this year’s Budget undoubtedly add to our strengths in physical infrastructure. However, there is room to nurture truly visionary scientific research backed by the idea that detours and exploratory science can yield the most disruptive impact with a longer horizon.
Some might ask, why invest in exploratory research given our resource restraints?
The goal is not to supplant applied research but to increase our offerings to create a fertile ground to encourage potential breakthroughs that may only emerge years after. In this vein, Switzerland’s Spark scheme offers lessons. The scheme explicitly minimises bureaucracy and encourages high-risk, unconventional ideas comprising four main points.
First, focus on novelty and originality. It welcomes proposals that challenge existing norms or lacks extensive data and expressly accepts projects that traditional schemes may deem too speculative. Second, rapid and flexible funding. Grants of ₣50,000 to ₣100,000 are given over a six- to 12-month timespan to allow room to fail fast and pivot quickly. Third, double-blind proposal evaluation where applicants and evaluators remain anonymous, guarding against bias that may result from individual or institutional prestige overshadowing each proposal’s intrinsic merits. Fourth, tolerance for negative results. In Spark’s eyes, even projects that fail can may mined for valuable insights, noting the explorations are essential even when outcomes are unclear.
In Singapore’s context, adopting a Spark-like model means carving out a dedicated stream for high-risk, early-stage exploration where high-risk research is explicitly insulated from more traditional performance measures. A possible pilot would be to create open problem platforms with prizes, like global cryptography or single-cell biology competitions.
After all, the essence of science is uncertainty and real breakthroughs rarely proceed linearly. Our system has to accommodate exploration and dead ends and to allow impossible experiments.
I also hope that we could consider two further measures in Singapore: allowing principal investigators (PI) to use PhD students for high-risk projects and permitting PIs to use a proportion of grant funds towards exploratory work. The aim here would be to stimulate original ideas rather than confining researchers to incremental pursuits.
Meanwhile, the 2024 Frontier Competitive Research Programme grant call announced in May 2024 focuses on use-inspired basic research. Could the Minister clarify how substantial the commitment is, which projects have secured support and how is this publicised to all scientists? Is this a sustained initiative or a one-off call?
To be a truly world-leading R&D research hub, Singapore has to invest in exploration that may time to bear fruit or even fail. I hope that the ideas above will contribute to policies that reflect the thinking necessary for Singapore to sustain our competitive edge in an uncertain global innovation race.
Quantum Computing
Quantum computing promises exponential improvements in simulating physical systems and solving complex problems faster than classical computers. Last year, Singapore made available nearly $400 million to quantum research, with MAS promoting quantum key distribution (QKD) for the banking sector. I seek greater clarity on our quantum roadmap.
First, Singapore is currently focused on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) machines, which rely on many short, error-prone runs and statistical processing of noisy outputs. Yet, the industry is moving toward fault-tolerant quantum computing (FTQC), as illustrated by Google’s December 2024 Willow chip demonstrating exponentially decreasing errors as qubits increase and Microsoft’s 2025 Majorana 1 processor aiming for a million qubits on one chip. Such breakthroughs could revolutionise physical sciences. Are there plans to pivot or also pursue FTQC?
Second, under the photonics and control electronics vertical of the National Quantum Processor Initiative (NQPI), how does the National Quantum Office plan to develop auxiliary industries, namely controls, readout and hardware-based error correction, to support next-generation quantum processors?
Third, NQPI’s science verticals focus on trapped ions and neutral atom arrays. Could the Minister clarify why superconducting qubits promising synergies with our semiconductor industry’s cleanroom fabrication processes were excluded?
Fourth, QKD has been strongly promoted by the Government and Temasek. However, QKD requires specialised, expensive hardware, whereas post-quantum cryptography (PQC) needs only software updates. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology recently finalised post-quantum standards, which function like current public-key encryption and are expected to be adopted universally. In this light, what is the view over our continued significant investments in QKD? Does the Government foresee regional QKD networks, possibly via low Earth orbit satellites and how would such efforts compare against simpler, cheaper PQC solutions?
The Minister for Education (Mr Chan Chun Sing): Chair, we thank Members for their various questions and suggestions on how our Public Service can do better.
Let me first address the cut by Ms He Ting Ru. She asked how we support exploratory scientific research and about our approach to quantum research. Chair, R&D is a long-cycle endeavour and any payoffs will be more appropriately assessed over the long-term, rather than the short-term, as Ms He has suggested.
In any research, particularly initial research, there will be many competing ideas. For instance, the mRNA vaccines that were crucial to fighting COVID-19 are a good example. The vaccines were enabled by decades of work in mRNA therapeutics, which many initially regarded as unpromising. No one knew then the role it would eventually play in a global pandemic. This is the nature of R&D.
In R&D, success requires carefully balancing continuity in commitment and investment, with the ability to pivot decisively when the need arises. Our National Research Foundation takes a portfolio approach, supporting R&D across fields and at different levels of maturity and applying relevant programme management approaches. Let me just explain that.
There is no one method in managing the complexity of different fields of research, different levels of research, different maturities or readiness-to-market levels of research. So, it is not a one method or a one-size-fits all. Different research areas with different time horizons, different challenges, require different management methods.
We review our programmes regularly, pivot them when necessary, or double down on efforts that show strong promise when circumstances evolve. We can only have such optionalities if we have built up our capabilities and talent intentionally. I must also explain that in making such decisions, we do not just rely on our own expertise. Because in many of these emerging fields, we may not have all the expertise. And this is the reason why the National Research Foundation and our research institutes make sure that they have extensive global networks with different panels of advisors that can give us their different perspectives for us to make a considered decision. And we have different councils, comprising both local and foreign experts in different fields to give us those advice that we need.
Quantum research is an example of where we are doubling down after seeing initial promise. Ms He asked about the possible technical approaches, including our current areas of focus as well as industry development efforts to build our quantum capabilities.
Indeed, this domain is nascent and dynamic. We will continue to adjust when needed and make judgements, taking into account the evolving landscape, our capabilities, what we have achieved and what others have achieved. Also, we keep a keen eye on where others are investing in, so that we can focus on the areas that we will have a competitive advantage.
I would also like to assure Members that the key Government agencies and research offices are keeping a close watch on all of these, internal and external developments, in consultation with both our local and international scientific panels, and we are not wedded to any particular focal area or approaches. But what we must do, carefully, is to build up the capabilities to allow us to have the suite of optionalities to pivot or double down as the circumstances evolve. And for Ms He’s suggestions, we will be happy to take into account her suggestions. If she has scientific papers that she feels will benefit our considerations, we welcome her to let us know and we will convey this to the National Research Foundation and our panel of scientific advisors to take a look at this.
More important than just building own talent pool and expertise, we must also grow our ecosystem of research institutes, industries and workforce. And when we say this, I do not just mean growing the capabilities in-house or only in this country.
Very often, in today’s R&D environment, we will need to leverage on the networks that we are able to access in the global environment. No one country, not even the biggest countries of India, China or US, will work alone necessarily in many of these cutting-edge areas and that is what we are committed to do. And in a more fragmented world, we must also ride on the opportunity for us to play the role to bring people from different backgrounds together and that is one area of our competitive advantage. This will then position Singapore strategically to contribute where we can and take advantage of the opportunities, be it in quantum technologies or other areas.
Prime Minister’s Office
28 February 2025
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=budget-2576
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 