NUS Launches S$50 Million AI Centre for Sustainable Biomanufacturing

The National University of Singapore (NUS) officially launched the National Centre for Engineering Biology (NCEB) on 5 October 2026, together with its new research facility. The national-level centre, backed by nearly S$50 million in funding, will focus on advancing AI-driven engineering biology for the sustainable biomanufacturing of specialty chemicals.

Mr Desmond Lee, Minister for Education and Minister-in-Charge of Social Services Integration, attended the launch as Guest of Honour. Hosted at NUS, NCEB has been established in partnership with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Institute of Technology, Temasek Polytechnic, Nanyang Polytechnic and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research. The centre is supported by the National Research Foundation under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 plan through a mid-sized grant spanning seven years from 2023.

NCEB aims to build foundational knowledge and technologies that enable the predictive design and engineering of living systems. Its goal is to support cleaner, more sustainable ways of producing high-value specialty chemicals using renewable feedstocks instead of energy-intensive, fossil-based processes.

Professor Matthew Chang, Executive Director of NCEB, Director of NUS SynCTI and SINERGY, and a faculty member in the Department of Biochemistry at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, said the centre builds on more than a decade of engineering biology capabilities in Singapore. These include the NUS Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation initiative and the Singapore Consortium for Synthetic Biology, strengthened by industry partnerships and interdisciplinary expertise across science, engineering, medicine and computing.

“Through NCEB, we will bring these strengths together, working closely with academic, government and industry partners to create an impactful shared research ecosystem. Our goal is to enable more sustainable ways of making products that society depends on, using renewable feedstocks and cleaner manufacturing processes,” Prof Chang said.

The centre’s work is organised around three research thrusts: machine learning for predictive biodesign, engineering biology for specialty chemical production, and advanced biofoundry capabilities. A core ambition is to shift engineering biology from largely trial-and-error methods towards predictive biological design, where researchers can better understand and model the relationship between genetic composition and cell function before building living systems.

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To support this shift, NCEB is developing shared data foundations and automated experimental platforms that generate large, standardised datasets. These datasets will allow results from different laboratories to be compared and combined, and will be used to train AI models that improve design accuracy over successive cycles.

The centre’s flagship project, led by NUS, focuses on AI-guided engineering biology for sustainable specialty chemicals. Specialty chemicals include biosurfactants, specialty lipids, flavour and fragrance compounds, bioactive molecules and building blocks for advanced materials. Many of these are difficult to produce through conventional chemistry. The project seeks to engineer microbes and enzymes that convert renewable feedstocks into these high-value products using predictively designed biological systems. Initial targets include functional fatty acids used across multiple industrial sectors.

The approach is AI-guided from start to finish. AI-synthetic biology platforms propose improved enzyme and pathway designs. The Advanced BioFoundry, a highly automated research facility at National University of Singapore, then builds and tests large numbers of these designs in parallel. Results are captured using common data standards and fed back into the models, so each experimental round improves the next.

Another key component is the Bioprocessing Innovation Platform, established in partnership with the Singapore Institute of Technology. This platform addresses the challenge of translating laboratory breakthroughs into industrial-scale production. It features an integrated fermentation and downstream bioprocessing system that supports process optimisation, scale-up studies and technology demonstration.

NCEB has also developed a digital infrastructure that includes the AI-Augmented Synthetic Biology Database for standardising biological and experimental data, the Synthetic Biology AI Designer platform for biological design, and secure enzyme informatics tools. Together these systems form the data and AI backbone that underpins the centre’s predictive design capabilities.

By combining AI, automation, standardised data and pilot-scale bioprocessing, NCEB positions Singapore as a strong international player in engineering biology. The centre is expected to generate new research discoveries, drive technological advancement and develop the talent needed to design and engineer living systems more reliably and sustainably.

The launch marks a significant step in Singapore’s efforts to apply synthetic biology and artificial intelligence to real-world manufacturing challenges. Through close collaboration across universities, polytechnics, research agencies and industry, NCEB aims to deliver cleaner production methods for specialty chemicals that society relies on, while building long-term research and innovation capacity in the field.