Professor Robbie Goh, Provost of the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS)
Mr. Ian Wong, Managing Director and Head of Group International Management, UOB
Mr. Lennon Tan, President, Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF) and Group Chairman, ADERA Global Pte Ltd
Ladies and Gentlemen,
1. A very good morning.
2. Those of my generation would have fondly remembered visiting the computer lab in school. Bulky cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitors, screeching noise of a dial up modem. 28.8 kilobits (kb) per second was all we had. Then much later, 56.8 kb modems. Those were like engines on afterburner.
3. It is probably difficult to comprehend. Why the hype over a computer lab? But back then, this was cutting edge. Access to computers was a luxury, and much earlier, I remember loading Microsoft DOS using floppy disk drives.
4. I also remember hard coding my first HTML in 1996 and uploading it into Angelfire, a free hosting website back then. And computers that we had were 486s and Pentiums. The thought of having dual core and quad core chips were, to all of us, space technology.
5. Today marks the dawning of Generative AI and the advent of Industry 5.0. It is fast becoming the new Internet, and with it comes the pursuit of new experiences. The pace of change has gained momentum with the arrival of tools such as our beloved ChatGPT.
6. Chat bots are not a new idea, but the level of performance and adaptivity in ChatGPT is just astounding. What took Facebook four years, Instagram, two years, Google one, to achieve one hundred million users, ChatGPT took two months.
7. More recently, Nvidia, Salesforce Ventures and Cisco, participated in a $450 million investment for Toronto based AI, Cohere, while Cisco launched a $1 billion AI Investment Fund, and there are many more examples.
8. Pure computing power has doubled every two years since 1959 to 2012 tracking Moore's law, and we know it well. But today, computational power used to train the largest AI models doubles every 3.4 months. That's a rate of seven times faster than before, and if you think that this progression is rapid, it is still limited by GPUs because they can only condense this amount of computational power over a few hundred cores.
9. So, an AI chip maker, Cerebras, built the latest, largest chip in the world with 2.6 trillion transistors, and a condensed computational power of 850,000 cores. Compared to what I knew of 486s and Pentiums, and even quad cores today, this progress will continue to keep pace for machine learning and robotics.
10. In 2022, Amazon invested $1 billion in robotics. Amazon hires, today, about 1.6 million workers. It adds a thousand robots a day, as we speak. The ratio between workers to robots is one to three. By 2030, Amazon will have more robots than employees, and employment will be severely disrupted.
11. Throughout history, there has been a handful of technologies that have truly transformed the world, unleashing new levels of productivity and prosperity. Think about the steam engine; it took about 100 years, 25 years for the telephone, and 30 years for electricity. The printing press, which was invented in 1439, was widely adopted only in the 19th century.
12. These technologies changed the way we live and work. However, this time, most certainly, it will be different.
13. Five of the top tech companies today, Apple; Microsoft; Nvidia; Google; and Amazon, have a market cap of over $2 trillion SGD. And I want to emphasise this; even the richest countries in the world with the largest amount of reserves would have been dwarfed comparatively by one single tech company.
14. In Singapore, we have always risen to the challenge. You may be familiar with how Singapore has transformed its economy over the years to remain globally competitive. In the 1800s, we grew and traded gambier, then rubber, steel, and then timber.
15. So, very much of Singapore's growth is also parallel and closely tracks what happens in Jurong. Today, Jurong Innovation District has several high-tech companies, and one of them manufactures electric vehicles. If you have the opportunity, please do visit this company. The entire floor plate of the entire factory is run by only twelve staff. The entire production and assembly line is automated.
16. To keep up with advances, Singaporeans have had to constantly adapt and work in new ways. Imagine if we had stuck in our traditional industries of sawmills and steel mills, the possibilities of AI and industry 5.0 would be much further from our reach today.
17. So, today, more than ever, the ability to learn and obtain new skills must be inherent in the Singapore DNA. It is crucial for our success in a rapidly changing world.
- Our education system aims to prepare us to meet these challenges. MOE recently enhanced its 21st Century Competencies (21CC) Framework, to place greater emphasis on adaptive and inventive thinking, communication skills and civic literacy. These are critical in helping students navigate this world of rapid change.
- We also want to empower Singaporeans to take ownership of their careers. The SkillsFuture initiative supports workers to upskill and reskill, to stay relevant and employable across all seasons of life.
- A culture of adaptiveness and lifelong learning will help us to turn challenges to our advantage, press ahead, and progress as we make our way to SG60 and beyond.
18. Our Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) and businesses play a pivotal role in ensuring that we remain nimble and relevant. As the pace of change accelerates, it is important that all parties close the gap between students' training and industry needs.
- SUSS emphasises a lot on applied learning, works closely with industry, partners them, and ensures that curricula are closely in step with the skills required in practice.
- Students also take on work attachments with local or international companies. They are ready for the job market when they graduate, because they already have first-hand experience of our fast-changing economy.
- Let me highlight two of SUSS's graduates, Li Zhen and Donovan, who have demonstrated the ability to adapt to Industry 5.0. Or rather, they are 5.0-ready.
- Li Zhen graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Finance, even before the Industry 5.0 concept was introduced. Today, she leads projects in smart system integration and digital transformation initiatives at the real estate solutions firm, Boustead Projects, that design sustainable and innovative solutions that enhance the user's work experience.
- Another SUSS graduate from the Bachelor of Science in Supply Chain Management, Donovan, uses data-driven decision-making to redesign processes at Dyson, and make them more worker-friendly.
19. I hope to see more IHL-industry partnerships that support a pipeline of graduates who are industry-ready, and get industry to be more involved in their training, for companies to come forward and give back.
- I thank UOB for its initiative in investing in the development of our future workforce. UOB proposed the first Global Leadership Symposium (GLS) as a platform to build the leadership capacity of SUSS students and those in industry.
- Last year's inaugural GLS saw SUSS, UOB and SMF come together with a common focus on leadership. Bringing together the education, finance and manufacturing sectors, the first of such a symposium that brings together participants who are keen to champion the social good and sustainable business growth.
- Today's symposium, I'm happy to say, continues that conversation by providing a platform for all of us, especially to explore new collaborations in response to Industry 5.0.
20. Existentialism is indeed in our DNA.
21. Singapore has been building our capabilities since independence. We have a strong banking and financial system, we have robust public housing — and when I say robust, from an engineering manufacturing perspective, our public housing is actually enhanced for seismic events, earthquakes.
22. For food, we have several months of strategic reserves. We have a stockpile of essential reserves to rebuild our entire country in a disastrous calamity.
23. But how do we retool and re-enable strengthened competencies of our entire workforce when needed? Do we shrug our shoulders and say it's just bad luck? Do we say that it's beyond our control? I say, let's continue to fight and prepare for our survival. We've heard those who suggest that we should prepare less. Do less, take our time. We can cut a little here and there and assume that our existence is pre-ordained.
24. I dare say we have no interest in reverting to becoming a mud flat. They are only interested in building a country in their lifetime. We are here on a journey of building a country for many lifetimes — a hundred years, a thousand years, ten thousand years. Yes, no civilization has existed that long, but we will try. We may fail, but we will do our utmost.
25. So once again, I would like to thank UOB, SMF and SUSS for taking this opportunity for us to work together, strengthen the future of our workforce and inspire our students to what is the unimaginable future ahead of us. And may all of us proceed well, live long and prosper into SG100.
26. Thank you very much.