Schmidt Futures selects NTU for US$148 million postdoctoral fellowship programme in AI research

NTU Singapore has been selected to join the Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, a research programme of Schmidt Futures, to accelerate the next scientific revolution by applying artificial intelligence (AI) to research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

Schmidt Futures is a US-based philanthropic initiative co-founded by former Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy, President of the Schmidt Family Foundation, that brings talented people together in networks to realise their ideas and solve challenging problems in science and society.

The Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship is a US$148 million ($211 million) programme which supports fresh PhD researchers whose core research will benefit from AI integration.

NTU joins an initial cohort of nine global universities across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Singapore, which includes leading universities such as Oxford, Imperial College London and Cornell, to be part of the new Postdoctoral Fellowship programme.

By tapping on NTU’s strong interdisciplinary research ecosystem, the AI postdoc fellows will work on high impact research problems on applying AI techniques to research in engineering and the natural and mathematical sciences.

NTU Senior Vice President (Research) Professor Lam Khin Yong said: “NTU is proud to be one of the nine leading global universities to join the initial cohort of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship. This is an important recognition of NTU’s strengths in basic and translational research that delivers technologies and solutions to shape a better future for all. Artificial intelligence is a key research cluster in both the NTU2025 strategic plan and Singapore’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 plan. Be it aging, manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, and cybersecurity, NTU’s AI research cuts across a gamut of sectors that will change the way we live, study and work.”

NTU aims to develop AI in ways that are immediately socially and commercially impactful. This is achieved by giving special emphasis to “AI for X” research, such as AI for science including mathematics, AI for ageing society, AI for transport, AI for well-being, or AI for smart cities.

These “AI for X” projects will bring together researchers from across the NTU campus to work on multi-disciplinary AI projects and foster close collaboration between different schools and research centres.

Under this global partnership, which will last six years, Schmidt Futures will support postdoctoral programmes in research, innovation and teaching. Universities joining the programme will provide advanced AI training, funded research support, and professional development opportunities – both to shape research in their university and to help build a global network of AI-trained scientists.

“This year, we welcomed our inaugural batch of graduates from the Data Science and AI (DSAI) double major degree programme, which is recognised as one of the top DSAI programmes in the world. NTU’s strength in interdisciplinary research and close industry collaboration will allow it to develop AI in ways that are socially and commercially impactful, as it works with a variety of industry partners that use AI as an enabling tool. The NTU Smart Campus is already an ideal testbed for the development and testing of AI systems, such as autonomous vehicles. We look forward to a fruitful partnership with Schmidt Futures in deploying AI to address humanity’s grand challenges,” added Prof Lam.