In March 2026 a group of WASP PhD students and senior researchers went to an inspiring study trip to Singapore, a week dedicated to strengthening international networks, exploring cutting‑edge research, and building new collaborations. The program included visits to leading universities, meetings with industry, and a formal embassy dinner hosted at the Swedish Ambassador’s Residence.
– The WASP study trip to Singapore successfully combined academic exchange, industry visits, and networking. The experience will contribute positively to future research and professional development, says Bo Wahlberg, professor at KTH and co-organizer.
Karl‑Erik Årzén, professor at Lund University and co‑organizer, highlighted the strategic insights gained during the week:
– Singapore offered an impressive look into a highly integrated AI and robotics ecosystem. We saw how intelligent transport systems are prioritized across road, air, and sea, and how closely academia, government, and industry collaborate. Reinforcement learning, embodied AI, agentic AI and applied robotics are clearly central focus areas — with physical and embodied AI standing out in particular.
Industrial PhD student at SAAB, Karl Hammar summarized the experience:
– Just arrived back in Sweden after an amazing study trip to Singapore with WASP, meeting researchers in both academia and industry, the Swedish ambassador and his team, and even Saab colleagues. Thank you to the organizers and WASP for this opportunity, and thanks to everyone for interesting conversations!
Monday, March 23 – Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
The first day was spent at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), focusing on research presentations by NTU professors. The local hosts at NTU were Professor Michael Khor and Dr Yao Wei.
The program included:
• Smart mobility systems and challenges in achieving a car-lite society
• Neural network methods for solving nonlinear PDEs in high-dimensional applications
• Agentic reinforcement learning for autonomous systems
• AI-enabled robot perception and navigation
• Human-centric embodied AI
• AI applications for public transport optimization
The day concluded with a panel discussion and informal exchanges with researchers.
Tuesday, March 24 – NTU: Lab tours and poster session
Participants took part in structured lab rotations across three major NTU research laboratories:
• Alibaba-NTU Global e-Sustainability CorpLab (energy-efficient AI)
• Delta-NTU Corporate Laboratory (autonomous robotics)
• Schaeffler-NTU Corporate Laboratory (humanoid robotics)
In the afternoon a combined poster session involving WASP and NTU students and postdocs enabled the WASP students to present their research.
Wednesday, March 25 – National University of Singapore (NUS)
The group made a visit to the NUS AI Institute at National University of Singapore (NUS) with Thayalini D/O Selvaraj and Professor Lee Wee Sun as hosts.
The program included presentations on HCI, robotics, AI for coding, and trustworthy AI, demonstrations from research groups and a joint poster session with NUS researchers.
Thursday, March 26 – PSA, SGInnovate, NRP Robotics Landscape and Swedish Embassy in Singapore
The day began with a visit to Port Singapore Authority (PSA). The port in Singapore is one of the largest in the world and PSA is one of the largest port operations companies in the world. The focus of the visit was logistics, automation, and AI-driven port operations.
The group also visited SGInnovate and NRP Robotics Landscape for an overview of Singapore’s robotics ecosystem and industrial AI applications, with a strong emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship.
In the evening, participants were welcomed to the Residence of the Swedish Ambassador for a networking dinner attended by representatives from Ericsson, SEB, NTU, NUS, and other key organizations.
Friday, March 27 – A*STAR, Lorong AI and Nordic Innovation House
The final day included a visit to A*STAR Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre (ARTC), a research institute / funding agency with focus on modern manufacturing (industrial robotics, humanoid robotics, Industry 4.0/5.0).
Later a visit was made to Lorong AI where first a workshop on Claude Code AI-assisted development of LLM-based agentic solution was given and a presentation by a Danish entrepreneur about his startup ideas.
The day concluded with a Nordic Neural Networking Event hosted by Nordic Innovation House, bringing together researchers and industry representatives from across the Nordic region.
The Thursday and Friday program was coordinated by Eric Tan from Business Sweden.
The trip was organized by
• Karl-Erik Årzen, Lund University
• Bo Wahlberg, KTH
• Hui Han, Luleå University of Technology
• Volker Krüger, Lund University
Published: April 2nd, 2026
[addtoany]