This network of interconnected lamp posts could form the spine of the Smart Nation Sensor Platform (SNSP), which aims to use artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to analyse, for instance, video footage collected by various government agencies.

Such data could be used to detect anomalies and predict situations such as potentially unruly crowds and traffic congestion.

“We are making every lamp post a ‘smart’ lamp post to mount different types of sensors,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in his National Day Rally speech yesterday when he spoke about making Singapore a smart nation and using technology to boost public safety.

The AI-based video analytics system is slated for a trial in the city’s Orchard Road shopping precinct as well as selected housing estates from October.

During the year-long trial, the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and other agencies will monitor noise, water and sewage levels for better estate management, and install smart water meters in homes to better track the use of utilities, |said Lee.

GovTech and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) will test the lamp posts with trials in selected areas over the next 18 months.

The private sector will also be roped in. GovTech will call a tender at the end of the year for products that will let LTA’s 95,000 street lamps be used for transmitting data such as temperature, humidity, footfall or vehicular traffic.

Lee said the SNSP initiative was born after the Little India riots in December 2013 – the first public disturbance of its kind in 40 years.

“We were caught a little flat-footed. There were too few CCTV cameras … We had to rely on footage posted by the public on social media,” he said.

Around 300 foreign workers were involved in the riot at the junction of Race Course Road and Hampshire Road, which lasted for about two hours.

Since then, more CCTV cameras have been installed in public places. However, the different surveillance systems have not been brought together, said Lee.

For instance, the LTA has its own cameras to monitor traffic conditions and deter illegal parking. The police have put their cameras at the void decks of Housing Board flats and lift landings as part of efforts to deal with loan sharks.

National water agency PUB has sensors to detect water levels in drains.

In this respect, Singapore lags behind other cities, saidLee.

“Many cities already have comprehensive CCTV and sensor networks. And they also can integrate the inputs from all the sources, analyse and make sense of the information, and respond promptly if there is an incident or emergency.”

Combining such inputs into an integrated data source is crucial, Lee added.

“If one day, we have an incident like the Boston bombings, our Home Team can assess the situation quickly and respond promptly, or even pre-empt it,” he said.

In April 2013, twin bombs near the finishing line of the Boston Marathon in the United States killed three people and wounded 264.

The Boston police identified the two bombers in three days after pulling together and analysing a vast amount of data from CCTV cameras, social media and footage from the public.

The project would use traffic volume data collected through a network of cameras installed on expressways, streets and elsewhere to predict locations where traffic jams look likely to occur, which will help ease or even prevent congestion. The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry hopes harnessing this data to help drivers avoid traffic jams would boost the tourism industry and revitalise local areas.

After soliciting nominations of famous tourist areas across the nation, the ministry plans to select two or three locations to implement the project as early as September. The pilot project would be conducted over several years, after which the system is expected to be rolled out and fully implemented across Japan.

Under the ministry’s plan, a network of cameras would be installed at expressway interchanges, major roads and other locations. The cameras would record, in detail, data such as how many vehicles travel in which direction during certain times and seasons.

The project would use the next-generation electronic toll collection (ETC 2.0, see below) system installed in vehicles to gather information such as which route was taken, the vehicle’s speed and where the driver had to use the brakes. The system would not identify the individual driver.

Current congestion forecasts mainly focus on expressways and major national roads, and are limited to estimates based on information collected in the past.

The new forecasts would be calculated based on a combination of detailed data and past congestion conditions.

The system would use AI’s learning ability to deduce formulas to predict under what conditions congestion occurs.

It would predict the congestion conditions several hours ahead for specific locations, such as certain tourist facilities and their surrounding areas.

These congestion forecasts would be provided to local governments and police forces with jurisdiction over the roads.

On roads where traffic volumes are likely to increase, local authorities would take steps such as extending the time traffic signals are green and managing traffic by restricting the inflow of vehicles.

Information also would be sent to smartphone apps and vehicle navigation systems to urge drivers to avoid congested routes.

It also would encourage the use of “park and ride” services, in which vehicles are parked at parking lots and other spaces away from a city centre, and the passengers then travel to their destination by train or bus.

A next-generation, non-stop electronic toll collection system was fully introduced in August 2015.

The system can collect large volumes of data such as a vehicle’s location information and speed through two-way communication between roadside equipment installed along expressways and national roads, and onboard units and vehicle navigation systems.

Researchers from the Hybrid Nanomaterials Engineering Group at Cambridge University’s Graphene Centre successfully incorporated black phosphorus, a two-dimensional material similar to graphene, into ink that is compatible with conventional inkjet printers.

The team collaborated with scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beihang and Zhejiang universities.

Graphene and black phosphorus are part of a growing family of revolutionary two-dimensional materials that are subject to intense scientific research due to their special properties.

Black phosphorus is not as conductive as graphene, though it is sensitive to a greater region of the electromagnetic spectrum including infrared, making it ideal for the development of optoelectronic devices.

Such devices that detect, source or control light include solar cells, light emitters, optical fibres and sensors. The material may also have applications in technologies such as flexible, wearable electronics.

Hu Guohua, a PhD student at Cambridge University and lead author of the study, which has been published in the science journal Nature, said the team printed the new ink onto a range of materials.

“Printing on silicon means it can be used to make transistors or photodetectors,” he said. “If we print on plastic, it can be used to make flexible devices and on glass for transparent devices.”

China’s interest in British research into the commercial application of two-dimensional materials was highlighted by President Xi Jinping’s visit to the National Graphene Institute in Manchester during his 2015 state visit to the UK.

The beneficial properties of black phosphorus have been known for some time, but until now there was no reliable way to convert the bulk crystals into a stable and printable ink.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul Metro Corp, which operates the city’s subway lines 1-8, is set to start accepting bids this week from companies for Seoul’s metro system telecom service improvement project.

The government had initially sought to complete the project this year, but had to delay it following controversy over the fairness of the bidding process.

The public network improvement project aims to offer public Wi-Fi with a transmission speed of at least 360 megabytes per second within Seoul’s subway system. This is close to the speed of the current Long Term Evolution, or LTE, networks that sits at around 400-500 mbps.

Now, local carriers including SK Telecom and KT offer free Wi-Fi services inside subway stations and train carriages. However, the connection quality is often poor, with the data transmission speed falling to below 10 mbps in a packed subway car, rendering the networks unusable.

One reason is that local mobile carriers have publicised only a part of their wireless access points, which affects the quality of a given Wi-Fi network connection, citing their obligation to preserve the quality of their paid LTE network by regulating data traffic.

This is why the government has decided to step in, viewing the public Wi-Fi issue as a public project to be spearheaded by the state rather than private telecom firms.

The company that wins the bid to carry out Seoul’s metro system telecom service improvement project is scheduled to begin testing the free ultra-fast Wi-Fi system on subway line 8 from March 2018.

According to the Seoul Metro Corp., line 8 is the shortest subway route in Seoul and also operates with just six cars, making it a suitable testing candidate.

The trend is expected to continue as companies scramble to differentiate themselves amid mounting competition and meet consumers’ growing demand for intelligent products.

Wang Zhiguo, executive vice-president of the research institute at iFlytek, a leading voice-recognition company in China, said AI is of increasing importance to robots, as it gives machines “eyes, ears and a brain”.

About 3,000 robots are using the company’s AI technology to better understand human conversation and interact with consumers.

iFlytek itself unveiled a robot at the conference to assist at hospitals. After listening to a patient’s symptoms, the robot can offer guidance on which medical department the patient should visit for treatment.

Consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers forecast that AI-related industries will boost China’s GDP by as much as 26 per cent by 2030.

Zong Xiao, vice-president of HIT Robot Group, a major robot manufacturer in China, said the company has established an AI research and development institute in Zhejiang province to explore how to combine the cutting-edge technology with its mechanical prowess.

“AI to robots is what operating systems are to personal computers. This is an area into which we will pour huge resources in the future,” Zong said.

HIT Robot Group was established in December 2014 with funding from the provincial government and the Harbin Institute of Technology, an elite Chinese university that has conducted years of research on robotics. The university was the manufacturer of China’s first space robots and lunar vehicle.

Zong said the company has also established a venture capital fund to invest in promising AI start-ups in the United States, without disclosing the size of the fund. Two years ago, it set up offices in Silicon Valley and Washington DC to help access the latest AI trends and identify the industry’s best talents.

In June, China set up its first AI alliance in a move to expand the industry at a rapid pace. Led by the China Centre for Information Industry Development, tech giants including iFlytek, JD.com and Ecovacs Robotics teamed up to form the non-profit organisation.

Zhang Boxu, director of Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, said the key battlefield for robotics is shifting from hardware competition to software.

“There is a growing demand for tailormade, Internet-connected robots. How to effectively integrate software and AI into machines will be the key to future growth,” Zhang said.