Originating
as the Magnetics Technology Centre (MTC) in the early 1990s, Data Storage
Institute’s (DSI) purpose was to undertake R&D in magnetics
technology for hard disk drive (HDD). By translating research into economic
outcomes for Singapore, DSI also played a critical role in moving Singapore’s
data storage industry up the value chain and creating high-value jobs.
The
founding Executive Director of DSI, currently the CEO of National Research
Foundation (NRF), Prof Low Teck Seng said: “When DSI was established
in the early 1990s to undertake R&D in storage manufacturing, it moved
Singapore up the value chain from merely manufacturing hard disk drives to
higher value-added activities such as hard disk media research and hard disk
drive design.”
Due
to rapid technological advances and the wave of digitalisation, the data
storage industry has evolved and transformed. In Singapore, the HDD industry is
also impacted by these global trends. The industry went through considerable
consolidation with much of the production now happens outside of Singapore.
Given
these industry shifts, A*STAR announced
that it has decided to redeploy its talent and resources at the DSI to other
A*STAR research units to deepen and complement relevant capabilities in those
units in order to deliver greater impact in line with national priorities.
According
to the press release by A*STAR, digital information is exchanged at lightning
speed today, with mobile devices more powerful than PCs now fit modern
processing power in a pocket and Internet of Things (IoT) devices being able to
sense and respond to their environments.
As
A*STAR drives economic mission-oriented research and development that advances
science and innovation, it has to pro-actively adapt to, and anticipate, the
rapidly changing industry landscape and opportunities arising from shifts in
global trends and demands.
“Today,
as the data storage industry evolves, I am happy to see that DSI’s capabilities
and resources are being redeployed to take Singapore’s electronics and
infocomms industry to the next level,” said Prof Low Teck Seng.
In
view of how data technologies have become vitally important to all sectors of
work and life, A*STAR is working towards a closer coupling of data science and
technology to derive greater synergies to support Singapore’s economy. The
redeployment of DSI’s talent and resources allows A*STAR to organise its
capabilities to better support the strategic technology domains of Singapore’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE)
national strategy, and develop competitive advantages.
DSI’s expertise in non-volatile
memory, disk drive design and systems, and data centre network technologies,
will continue to contribute significantly to the agency’s key priorities such
as Future of Manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence, Industrial IoT and
Cybersecurity.
As
an example, DSI’s capabilities in non-volatile memory and optical storage
research will enable its scientists to contribute to the next generation
technologies of artificial intelligence, edge computing and quantum
information.