Incubating tech-based start-ups

At the smart cafe, robot baristas use facial recognition technology to serve regular customers coffee suited to their tastes. — The Straits Times/Asia News Network

NATIONAL University of Singapore’s (NUS) newest building, innovation4.0, boasts a smart cafe where robot baristas use facial recognition and machine learning technologies to serve regular customers the perfect cup of coffee suited to their tastes.

Going forward, NUS hopes the state-of-the-art, six-storey building will serve up more than coffee. It will serve as the base from which the university plans to seed, incubate and launch up to 250 tech-based start-ups. It will spend S$25mil (RM76mil) over five years in the process and use the latest technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to do this.