NUHS, Singtel and Ericsson launch 6G healthcare AI centre

A testbed for healthcare applications

The organisations signed a Memorandum of Understanding to accelerate research and development in advanced connectivity, artificial intelligence and connected intelligence. NUHS will provide clinical, academic and research leadership, while Ericsson will contribute expertise in mobile networks, network architecture and future 6G research. Singtel will contribute advanced network deployment and services expertise.

Singtel and Ericsson will be founding partners of NUHS' newly established National University XG AI Centre, or NXAC. The centre is intended to bring healthcare, telecommunications and technology specialists together to develop and translate research into deployable applications.

According to the announcement, NXAC will be the world's first 6G AI centre dedicated to healthcare and Singapore's first translational research and development centre aimed at serving the global healthcare community. Its name refers to the centre's ambition to cover successive network generations, from 5G today towards 6G and beyond.

From hospital logistics to care at home

NXAC will operate as a testbed in a working hospital environment. Its teams and industry partners will work alongside clinicians, nurses and operations teams to develop and evaluate technologies, with the collaboration also covering joint training programmes, fellowships, internships and clinician-engineer collaborations.

The planned work includes ambient AI for clinical workflows, contactless monitoring and earlier risk detection, as well as spatial intelligence and sensing to improve visibility of people, assets and hospital activities. Other areas include simulation-to-real-world development, autonomous healthcare facilities, connected devices and wearables, autonomous medical robotics and medical extended reality.

Potential applications described by NUHS include autonomous mobile robots for hospital logistics and patient care, connected devices that extend care into the home, AI-enabled intelligent fabric, and human augmentation for advanced surgeries. The partners also point to robot-assisted surgery, holographic guidance, clinical training and remote specialist collaboration.

A partnership built on five years of work

The expanded collaboration builds on five years of work exploring advanced connectivity for healthcare. The partnership began with 5G infrastructure in 2021 and expanded to an indoor 5G network at NUH in 2022. When fully commissioned in November 2023, that network covered 10 operating theatres and three inpatient wards.

NUHS said the centre could support more proactive, personalised and continuous care extending from hospitals into patients' homes and communities. Connected wearables could support continuous monitoring and preventive care, while autonomous robotics could assist with logistics, medication delivery and patient support.

The partners also intend to pursue public research and innovation funding, including a corporate laboratory or equivalent industry-public research programme hosted by NUHS and undertaken through NXAC. For healthcare users, the stated aim is to move emerging network and AI technologies from research towards applications that support clinical teams, hospital operations and continuity of care. The announcement does not say when any individual application will become available.