The National University Health System (NUHS), Singtel and Ericsson have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), reinforcing their commitment to a strategic partnership to advance connected healthcare, 5G-Advanced and 6G technology, as well as connected intelligence.
The collaboration will focus on research and development, harnessing successive generations of telecommunications and artificial intelligence technology to deliver deployable healthcare applications. NUHS will provide clinical, academic and research leadership; Ericsson will contribute expertise in mobile network technologies, network architecture and future 6G research; and Singtel will contribute expertise in advanced network deployment and services.
As part of the collaboration, Singtel and Ericsson will be founding partners of NUHS' newly established National University XG AI Centre (NXAC), which will serve as a platform for developing and translating network-enabled healthcare applications.
NXAC will bring together healthcare, telecommunications and technology expertise. The name "XG" reflects the Centre's longer-term ambition to span successive generations of network technology, from 5G today towards 6G and beyond.
NXAC will be the world's first 6G AI centre dedicated to healthcare, as well as Singapore's first translational research and development centre, which aims to serve the global healthcare community. It will provide a platform for industry experts and healthcare professionals to co-develop and validate applications using next-generation network infrastructure and AI technologies.
Within hospitals, autonomous robotics could support logistics, medication delivery and patient support, while spatial intelligence and smarter facilities could improve the way hospitals manage their people, assets and infrastructure. Extended-reality technologies could also support robot-assisted surgery, holographic guidance, clinical training and remote specialist collaboration.
NXAC plans to spearhead initiatives built on the potential of emerging technologies, first supported by 5G and 5G-Advanced capabilities, with the programme designed to evolve towards early 6G.
