For more than three decades, A*STAR has been at the forefront of Singapore’s scientific journey, navigating the shifting tides of research challenges across sectors, from health and sustainability to manufacturing and computing. As society’s needs have evolved, so too have the focus areas of A*STAR’s scientists, with each generation driven by the same mission: to translate discovery into solutions that create growth and improve lives.
With Singapore’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2030 plan on the horizon, A*STAR once again stands at the heart of this transformation. RIE2030 outlines four priority domains—advanced manufacturing and engineering; health and biomedical sciences; sustainability and urban solutions; and artificial intelligence (AI), quantum and digital technologies. The plan underscores a dual imperative: to sustain world-class fundamental research while accelerating breakthroughs that bring about tangible results.
At the helm is A*STAR Chief Executive Officer Kian Teik Beh, who brings a uniquely broad perspective from his leadership roles at the Economic Development Board (EDB) and the National Research Foundation, Singapore (NRF). Having helped attract global investments in manufacturing, nurtured early-stage ventures, and shaped the RIE2025 agenda, Beh now leads A*STAR into its next phase—one that channels scientific excellence into real-world outcomes.
In this interview with A*STAR Research, he shares his vision for how A*STAR can drive Singapore’s innovation-led progress under RIE2030 and what it will take to transform deep science into lasting impact.
1. How do you envision A*STAR’s role in shaping the future of Singapore’s research and innovation landscape?
A*STAR stands as Singapore’s strategic innovation engine; we turn science into outcomes that strengthen both our economy and society.
Our research must confront the defining challenges of our time: How can we secure a truly sustainable energy future for a dense urban nation? How can we extend not just lifespan, but healthspan? How can we shape AI that is both powerful and human-centred? These, and learning how to build industries that grow and endure would be some of our key problem statements.
A*STAR exists to answer these questions. This clarity of purpose will guide our national missions—in semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, biomedical technology, AI, low-carbon energy and precision health.
The National Semiconductor Translation and Innovation Centre illustrates this approach. Singapore has invested widely across promising technologies—heterogeneous integration, silicon photonics, GaN, piezoMEMS and SiC—but the world has changed.
The National Semiconductor Translation and Innovation Centre illustrates this approach. Singapore has invested widely across promising technologies—heterogeneous integration, silicon photonics, gallium nitride, piezoelectric microelectromechanical systems and silicon carbide—but the world has changed.
The semiconductor industry now stands at an inflection point. The rise of AI computing is fuelling an additional US$400 billion in global growth over the next five years, demanding breakthroughs in performance, power and area (PPA)—a key trio of design metrics that determine how fast, energy-efficient and compact chips can be. These are now the defining bottlenecks shaping the future of advanced computing.
That’s why we’re concentrating our RIE2030 semiconductor resources on heterogeneous integration and silicon photonics—two technologies at the heart of AI-era computing. Photonics is no longer a niche; it’s already a trillion-dollar global market, with silicon photonics alone growing at about 30 percent annually.
We’ve seen decisive moves from major players: AMD’s acquisition of Enosemi to build photonic intellectual property for AI systems; xLight’s US$40 million funding for extreme ultraviolet laser sources; and Temasek’s Xora investing in Celestial AI and OpenLight, both pushing next-generation photonics platforms.
We cannot do everything, however. We need to take decisive bets and invest in advancing specific key areas or technologies within these broader questions. This will allow us to be essential in the places where it matters most. Success depends on discernment—choosing the points in the value chain where we can truly lead.
We may never outspend the world in R&D—but we can ‘out-focus’ it by leading in the areas that count.
2. How should A*STAR balance world-class science with the pressure to deliver translational outcomes for industry and society?
Many people believe the notion that doing one makes you lose the other. It isn’t a trade-off. Excellence is our engine, but impact must be our steering wheel. Without deep science, there’s nothing distinctive to translate; without translation, discovery remains confined to paper.
A*STAR’s task is to strengthen the bridge from discovery to deployment, ensuring that our work moves beyond prototypes to reach the clinic, the factory floor and the marketplace.
The story of Nuevocor, an A*STAR spinoff company, shows how this balance can be achieved in practice. It began with decades of A*STAR research on genetic cardiomyopathies—conditions that often lead to heart failure. By reframing cardiomyopathy as a biomechanical rather than purely biochemical problem, our scientists uncovered a new therapeutic path: a targeted gene therapy to restore nuclear integrity in damaged heart tissue.
With national translational support, including the Therapeutics Development and Gap Funding, the team spun out Nuevocor in 2020. The technology, pioneered by Colin Stewart and Brian Burke, became the basis for a targeted gene therapy to restore the integrity of cells in damaged heart tissues, offering a new therapeutic path for lamin A/C dilated cardiomyopathy.
Under Yann Chong Tan, an A*STAR scholar-turned-entrepreneur, the company raised US$24 million in Series A and US$45 million in Series B funding. Receiving US Food and Drug Administration clearance in 2025, Nuevocor’s innovation is one of Singapore’s first home-grown gene therapies to enter clinical trials—proof that sustained scientific depth can yield both economic and health benefits.
Maintaining that balance also demands clarity and prioritisation. The immune system, for example, is vast—spanning vaccines, immunotherapy and ageing. If every team pursues its own direction, our collective effort scatters.
Global exemplars such as Wellcome Leap have shown the value of defining bold, time-bound missions that unite top researchers around shared challenges. It’s not about limiting curiosity but channelling it so that collective effort leads to measurable progress.
Excellence provides the insight; translation gives it purpose. To serve Singapore, we must sustain both with focus and intent.
3. As Singapore’s R&D ecosystem evolves under RIE2030, what shifts would you make in A*STAR’s strategy to ensure that we are shaping, not just following, national priorities?
There are a few important shifts we must make. The first, and perhaps most fundamental, is focus. We need to move beyond pushing technology to letting real-world needs pull our science forward, aligning with the missions that matter most to Singapore: the energy transition, the AI economy and healthy longevity.
The second shift is about execution. As I mentioned, excellence provides the insight, while translation gives it purpose. To sustain both, A*STAR must deepen the pathway that carries research through to real-world application, ensuring that our work translates into tangible outcomes across healthcare, industry and society. When science improves daily life, its value becomes self-evident.
The third shift is spirit. To move at pace, A*STAR must evolve not only in what we fund but in how we behave. We are shaping a culture that DARES—Defining bold ambitions; being Agile; Reaching outward to solve Real-world challenges; and Experimenting with curiosity. Cultivating this culture will be critical to maximising A*STAR’s capacity in pairing scientific depth with agility and purpose.
Solving everyday problems remain our North Star, and I encourage our teams to really embrace this with ambition. This is my aspiration of where we as an institution ought to be, and where I think and hope our people would love to be as well.
4. Speaking from your experiences at EDB, NRF and now A*STAR, how has your view of Singapore’s R&D ecosystem evolved and where do you envision it heading?
It wasn’t too long ago that Singapore was known as a nation of technicians. Since the establishment of the A*STAR Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (A*STAR IMCB) in 1986, we have transformed into a nation of scientists. I’ve had the privilege of contributing across this ecosystem—from attracting investment and nurturing early-stage ventures at EDB, to shaping national R&D priorities at NRF.
Now, at A*STAR, I see our next leap: becoming a nation of scientific entrepreneurs. We have built a solid foundation of scientific rigour and capability; the next challenge is to channel that expertise into solving the defining problems of our time.
I look forward to the day—and in some ways, it’s already here—when, as we walk through the streets of Singapore, we can see our science in action all around us, and how different sectors have been positively shaped by the efforts of our A*STAR scientists and engineers. From factories on the west side of the country expanding with advanced technologies, to novel therapies entering clinical trials, and climate solutions being deployed in the field, people will see these transformations and say, “That’s A*STAR’s work.”
These are the stories I want to see multiply: tangible results that improve lives and remind us why we do what we do. They will also be the stories that sustain our collective pride and momentum.
Ultimately, our progress will be measured not just by the discoveries we make, but by the problems we solve and how we collaborate to solve them.
