Wednesday, 24 September 2008

Maritime Port Authority & A*STAR’S Institute Of HPC Collaborate to Promote Maritime R&D in Spore

For maritime companies keen to sharpen their competitive edge, help is on the way in the form of a SGD3.4 million collaboration between the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC)...

For maritime companies keen to sharpen their competitive edge, help is on the way in the form of a SGD3.4 million collaboration between the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC) a research institute under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

MPA and IHPC have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at MPA's 12th Maritime Forum that will enable maritime companies to leverage on IHPC’s Computational Science and Engineering capabilities through a three-year Maritime Research Programme (MRP).

Signed by BG (NS) Tay Lim Heng, Chief Executive, MPA, and Ms Yena Lim, Managing Director, A*STAR, the MOU’s overall objective is to further enhance Singapore’s status as a maritime research and development (R&D) hub.

"MPA has been actively promoting maritime R&D and innovation development over the past few years. Today’s MOU brings on board the involvement of a national research institute in the areas of port, shipping, and offshore and marine engineering,” said BG (NS) Tay.

“We welcome the participation of maritime companies in the programme. In the mid- to long-term, maritime R&D would bolster the competitive edge of our maritime cluster, as we strive to grow Singapore as an international maritime centre.”

Some research topics of interest to participating companies include the development of advanced designs for semi-submersible jack-up rigs and the application of large-scale computational fluid dynamics.

Ms Lim added, “Since its inception 10 years ago, IHPC has collaborated with the maritime industry through specific industry-oriented research projects. Over the past 3 years, IHPC has undertaken over 150 collaborative projects with various industry partners to leverage on IHPC’s visualisation facilities and its multi-disciplinary R&D manpower. Today’s signing marks a consolidated effort to encourage Singapore-based maritime companies to take full advantage of advanced modelling and simulation methods to innovate and optimise on performance of engineering systems.”