Singapore boosts technological assets to enhance national security

By Bobbie Ysabelle Matias

Singapore has recently unveiled significant enhancements to its national security with the help of the latest technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence (AI), as the government seeks to be one step ahead of entities looking to destabilise the city-state.

On May 26, during the AI TechXplore exhibition in Singapore, Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo announced that the government will invest SGD100 million ($77 million) in the city-state’s new Home Team Humanoid Robotics Centre (H2RC).

The H2RC will be under Singapore’s Home Team, a group of officers responsible for responding to threats against the island’s homeland security.

Operational by mid-2026, the H2RC will focus on AI model training, high-performance computing and, most importantly, the development of humanoid robots intended for public safety. It will be the first such facility in the world, according to Teo.

“Criminals are exploiting technology in ways never before imagined,” Teo pointed out. “As a result, law enforcement agencies, too, must understand how the technologies are being misused.

“But that on its own is not going to be enough. We must also have the capabilities to use the technology to fight crime, to do better for our people,” the minister said, according to The Straits Times.

Humanoid robots unveiled

The Home Team, at the same event, also revealed that they will be working with humanoid robots by mid-2027.

Currently being developed by the Home Team Science and Technology Agency, the four prototype robots unveiled at the exhibit are designed for high-risk operations, such as firefighting, hazmat response, and search and rescue.

Three of the robots stand about 1.7 metres tall, while one smaller unit is controlled via an exo-suit worn by a human operator. The exo-suit and virtual reality headset enable the robot to mirror human movement and perceive the environment through its cameras.

Human operators will initially remotely control the robots. They will later be powered by AI to allow them to act independently, with humans still supervising and intervening when needed.

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AI chatbot geared to language understanding, assisting with social care

Singapore is far from stopping its technological journey, however.

On May 28, the city-state introduced its national AI chatbot capable of understanding English and local native tongue languages, including Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, Thai and Singlish. Future updates will also support Chinese dialects.

Meralion, or the Multimodal Empathetic Reasoning and Learning in One Network, seeks to aid seniors and fight scams.

Developed by the A*Star Institute for Infocomm Research, and backed by a SGD70-million ($54 million) initiative from the National Research Foundation and Infocomm Media Development Authority, Meralion can detect emotional tone and respond empathetically, making it suitable for use in social services and security.

In eldercare, Meralion can autonomously call seniors to remind them to take medication or check on their well-being. It can interpret emotional cues from their speech, such as sadness or anger, and generate summaries for human social workers to review. 

The bot can also offer basic advice or alert human staff in case of more serious concerns depending on how the program is deployed.

Talks are already underway with a social service agency to roll out Meralion.

Meralion can help stop scam calls

Furthermore, Meralion is also being tested to intercept scam calls.

It identifies itself as an AI assistant, asks the caller for their purpose, and evaluates whether to block or allow the call. It can also screen out bot-generated calls often used in mass scam campaigns.

While this technology has yet to be implemented by potential clients, telecommunication providers may adopt it as a call filter service.

More than 90,000 copies of Meralion’s earlier open-source version have been downloaded by start-ups, research labs and academics since December 2024.

Meralion will serve as a solution to industry giants like ChatGPT and Google Gemini that often need major retraining on regional data to address their difficulty with local dialects, communication styles and nuances.

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