Artificial intelligence
From 2020-2022, I was the co-director of the AI Research Centre at Nanyang Technological University where I organized a range of events on the theme of AI for social good. I have a range of interests in artificial intelligence and its social impacts. In 2021, I became a co-PI at a large Franco-Singaporean (CNRS-NRF) hybrid AI project called DesCartes. I am still involved in conducting an ongoing ethnography study of that project. One preliminary output can be found here.
I have written about the impact of AI on the life sciences in the 1980s here and on more contemporary science, here. I have recently contributed to the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence: The Past, Future, and Present of Artificial Intelligence, due to be published in 2026.
BGI / Huada Jiyin
BGI is now the world’s largest genomics laboratory and one of China’s most widely known and important scientific institutions. Known as Huada Jiyin in mandarin, the Beijing-based BGI made a name for itself in 1999 by contributing to the international Human Genome Project. In 2007, BGI relocated to the southern city of Shenzhen, adjacent to Hong Kong, with the intention of forging a new path for itself.
I have been visiting and studying BGI since 2014. In 2017, I spent the summer in Shenzhen doing fieldwork in the city and at BGI. I have published about BGI here and here. I have also written about electronics in Shenzhen.
Tropics of Silicon
The history of the rise and development of the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley is now well-documented. As the cost of labour rose in the United States, some of these California-based companies examined the possibility of moving some of their manufacturing operations offshore. At the same time, developing nations in East and Southeast Asia – especially the “four little dragons” or “four Asian tiger” economies of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea – were eager to generate employment and bolster economic output by hosting multi-national companies within their borders. These nations competed to offer tax breaks, ready labour forces, land, and factory space to attract microelectronics manufacturers.
With much encouragement from the government, the American company National Semiconductor opened operations in Singapore in 1968. Fairchild Semiconductor, the first firm to design and manufacture integrated circuits, set up a manufacturing plant in Toa Payoh in 1969. They were followed by Texas Instruments and Hewlett-Packard operations in 1970. Seven thousand jobs were created in just three years. By the early 1980s, Singapore had become a major hub for microelectronics and semiconductor manufacturing with Digital Equipment Corporation, and Seagate also operating in the Republic.
This project aims to understand the role that these Singaporean and Southeast Asian operations played in the globalization of the microelectronics industry more broadly. Alongside operations in Latin America, these plants led the way in the globalization of microelectronics and ultimately transformed that industry. Now the vast majority of the world’s electronics – including microelectronics devices – are produced in the People’s Republic of China. This has significant implications for the global distribution of expertise, jobs, and the balance of global trade. This project aims to better describe and situate the role of Singapore and Southeast Asia in such knowledge transfers.
This project received sponsorship under a Heritage Research Grant from Singapore’s National Heritage Board.
For more information see the dedicated website here.
Novel proteins
The last five years have seen a proliferation of companies developing “cultivated meats” otherwise known as lab-grown meats or cell-based proteins. I was among the first consumers to try lab-grown meat when it authorized for sale in Singapore in 2020. I wrote about this experience in The Guardian, here.
I have also written more about the industry in Singapore and Australia here, here, and here.