Speech by Minister Chee Hong Tat at the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) Construction Technology Innovation Laboratory (CTIL) Technical Seminar 2026

Introduction

A very good morning to all of you. It is my pleasure to join you this morning for the Technical Seminar by the Construction Technology Innovation Laboratory, or CTIL.

Our Built Environment is an important sector. It plays an important role in Singapore’s continued development. We have a strong pipeline of projects ahead of us, from new HDB homes and MRT lines, to major projects such as Changi Airport Terminal 5 and Long Island. To deliver these projects well, we must continue to build productively, reduce reliance on manpower, lower carbon emissions, and uphold high standards of safety and quality. It sounds like a very ambitious goal to achieve, but I am confident that with research and technology, we can achieve these outcomes. We also know that what really matters is not just to do the research, but whether good ideas and research can ultimately be translated into practical solutions.

At the International Built Environment Week 2026, which took place last month, I highlighted CTIL as a good example of how industry and our Institutes of Higher Learning can work together to develop and test solutions in real-world settings. This close partnership between research and industry is very important because we want promising innovations to move beyond the lab and make a real difference on the ground.

Celebrating CTIL's Journey and Growth

CTIL has come a long way since its launch in January 2021. It began as a partnership between SIT and Woh Hup, with three value-chain partners and close to $6 million in R&D investment. Five years on, CTIL has grown into a thriving platform for applied research and industry collaboration. This progress would not have been possible without the sustained commitment of its many partners. For that, I want to say a big thank you to all the partners for working closely with CTIL. 

A key strength of CTIL is its focus on meeting industry needs. Companies bring forward their challenges, researchers contribute expertise, partners co-invest, and real-world construction projects provide opportunities to test the new solutions. 

• One good example is CTIL's development of ultra-low carbon concrete. I also had a chance to talk to some of the researchers earlier. The team developed a system that can replace up to 80 per cent of conventional cement with ground granulated blast furnace slag. This is a significant step up from the 20 to 30 per cent typically used for superstructure construction and can reduce the concrete’s embodied carbon by up to 65 per cent without compromising material strength or construction efficiency.

• And this is not just a promising idea in the lab. It has already been deployed in actual projects. These include the completed Copen Grand and Lumina Grand executive condominium developments, as well as Union Square and the redevelopment of Clifford Centre, which are currently under construction.

This is the kind of outcome that we hope to see from R&D – good ideas being tested in real world conditions, proven on actual projects, and eventually adopted widely by industry. 

Getting there requires companies that are prepared to try new approaches and take calculated risks. Not every solution will work perfectly the first time. Sometimes you try a promising idea, it may still fail, but we must be prepared to try, learn and improve, while maintaining high standards of safety and quality. CTIL provides an excellent environment for industry and researchers to do this together.

Launch of the Woh Hup–SIT–A*STAR Consortium Research Programme for Sustainable Construction Technology

Today, we are taking another important step to support such collaboration and to accelerate the development of practical solutions for the Built Environment sector. I am very pleased to announce the launch of the Woh Hup–SIT–A*STAR Consortium Research Programme for Sustainable Construction Technology.

• The programme brings together SIT, A*STAR, Woh Hup and seven other industry partners across the value chain. More than $30 million has been committed through funding and in-kind contributions from SIT, A*STAR and our industry partners, making this one of the largest private-sector R&D investments in the Built Environment sector to date.

• Over the next three years, the consortium will undertake seven research projects spanning sustainable construction materials, innovative substructural systems, and low-carbon structures and reusability.

The programme will build on the successful outcomes of CTIL’s earlier research. This includes projects supported under Phases 1 and 2 of the Built Environment Technology Alliance, or BETA, Catalyst Funding. 

• It will take this work further in areas where our sector has clear needs, such as scaling up ultra-low carbon concrete production, developing AI-enabled design and optimisation tools, transforming demolition waste into useful construction materials, and enabling the circular reuse of structural steel. 

• These technologies can help reduce embodied carbon, improve productivity and resource efficiency, and strengthen the resilience of our construction supply chain.

These investments will also build longer-term capabilities in Singapore. We want our firms and professionals to develop new competencies in areas such as AI-enabled design, sustainable materials and data analytics. And we hope that by doing this, we can create more good job opportunities for our people, so that they can take on higher-value work as construction methods continue to evolve and our industry continues to transform.

Government Support for R&D and Technology Translation

The Government will keep investing in R&D and translation of promising technologies into practical solutions. This is a never-ending journey. Something that we have to keep doing, something that we will keep investing in. 

• At the International Built Environment Week last month, I announced that we will set aside $112 million over the next five years under the RIE2030 Cities of Tomorrow R&D Programme, covering four funding initiatives: Advanced Construction; Resilient Infrastructure and Smart Facilities Management; Sustainable Built Environment; and the BETA Catalyst Funding Programme.

• Earlier this year, we had also launched the Urban Solutions and Sustainability Translation Fund to help companies turn promising prototypes into market-ready solutions, by addressing barriers such as high upfront costs and the risks of early adoption. 

Together, I hope these programmes can better support the development and adoption of new solutions in Singapore’s Built Environment. So I would like to encourage CTIL and all our partners to make full use of these support schemes and to continue to work with us. By doing so, we can build momentum and bring more good ideas from research into deployment, and eventually to widen adoption across the industry. This won’t happen overnight but it is something we must keep pushing because this is the right direction to go. By working together, we increase the chances of us to be able to achieve this successfully as a team, as an ecosystem, not individually, because then there is no scaling up. We want to achieve economies of scale, we want to achieve the eventual cost savings and productivity gains. And so this has to be tackled at an ecosystem level, so that different parts of the ecosystem can align and move together.

Improving Built Environment Productivity

While R&D funding and new technology adoption are critical to our sector’s transformation, we must also examine our existing processes and practices to identify opportunities to achieve better productivity, quality and value. And this is where the government, as regulators, as policymakers, need to come in and work closely with our industry hand in hand. 

This is why we formed the Action Team to Improve Built Environment Productivity earlier this year, which I am chairing, with MOS Alvin Tan as the Deputy Chair. It comprises representatives from different parts of the Built Environment. The Action Team brings Government and industry together to identify practical ways to help our companies to save three things - save time, save costs and save manpower. At the same time, we want to maintain high standards of safety and quality. 

• One useful idea that emerged from the Action Team's work thus far, relates to diaphragm walls, or D-walls. We were having a chat earlier on the North-South Corridor where there are lots of diaphragm walls. Commonly used in underground projects such as MRT stations and basements, these reinforced concrete walls support the surrounding ground during construction and keep the completed structure watertight. 

• The industry has shared with us that in some D-wall applications, reinforcement can become highly congested within the walls. This makes it harder for concrete to flow evenly around the steel, which can affect construction quality and potentially lead to water leakage. Rectifying these defects later would require additional time, manpower, and costs. 

I am therefore pleased to share with everyone that BCA and LTA have formed a joint Working Group with industry professionals, specialist contractors and practitioners. Together, they will develop clear technical guidelines to enhance D-wall construction quality. 

• The guidelines will set out how improved concrete performance and appropriate detailing can be used to optimise reinforcement, while maintaining the required structural safety and water-tightness. The measures are expected to reduce reinforcement usage in D-walls by about 10 per cent and generate potential cost savings of up to $3 million per kilometre of D-wall based on reduction of steel reinforcement usage. 

• At the same time, these measures will improve construction quality and productivity, and reduce the need for subsequent rectification works. BCA will share more details when the guidelines are ready. This is a direction that we are heading towards.

This is another form, another element of innovation. It does not always involve a new technology. Sometimes, it means taking a fresh look at the way we do things today, working with our industry partners to identify what are the areas that we can do better, and finding ways to achieve the same desired outcomes, but with lower costs, less time and less manpower. It is both regulatory and policy innovation, which must go hand in hand if we want to achieve the benefits of technology and research innovation at scale across an entire ecosystem. 

Call to Action

The examples that I have shared with everyone today point to one common lesson: innovation works best when researchers, companies and Government work together, and we each play our part. 

The Government will continue to support R&D and technology transformation. We will also continue to review our rules and processes to make sure that they can support innovation and that they are pro-business. What we cannot achieve is to push for transformation alone. That, I think will be very difficult, because then you are acting in silos, and sometimes what you do are constrained by what other people do in the ecosystem. And this is why I firmly believe that our partners from the industry and academia play a very important role. I would like to encourage more companies across the Built Environment value chain to come forward – tell us what are some of your practical challenges, what are some of your pain points, what do you think are some of the areas for improvement; work with our researchers, participate in our pilot projects, and invest in promising solutions that can bring them into wider use. 

Through such collaborations, I hope we can turn more good ideas into practical improvements across the sector and achieve a win-win-win outcome. First win is for the companies to save money, save time, save manpower. Second win is for the people working in the sector, because we improve the nature of the jobs, improve the safety and improve the work environment. The third win is for the sector as a whole, because it is by achieving all these improvements individually, that collectively we can create a more competitive, a more productive and a more attractive Built Environment sector.

I would like to end my speech by thanking SIT, Woh Hup, A*STAR and all consortium partners for your commitment and contributions over the years. CTIL’s progress over the past five years shows what can be achieved when we bring together good research, practical industry experience, and very importantly, an open mind, a willingness to try new ideas and approaches. 

The next phase of CTIL’s work will produce many more innovative solutions – I am confident of it. And what we then need to do is to work closely with the researchers and companies to put these good ideas into practice, help us to build a greener, more productive and more resilient Built Environment sector for Singapore.

I wish everyone a fruitful seminar, and I look forward to seeing the ideas discussed today take root in the projects of tomorrow.

Thank you.