Fusionopolis was conceived as the engineering and infocomm counterpart to Biopolis, occupying the central portion of the One-North estate near Rochester Road. While Biopolis targets the life sciences, Fusionopolis houses research in physical sciences, engineering, information technology, and computational sciences. It shares the same master developer — JTC Corporation — and the same institutional anchor — A*STAR — but its Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) institutes rather than the Biomedical Research Council.
The name reflects the intended convergence: Fusion refers to the merging of disciplines at the intersection of computing, materials science, and engineering. Over time, this has meant that Fusionopolis hosts some of Singapore's most applied research — work oriented toward defence, manufacturing, and digital infrastructure rather than pharmaceutical development.
Architectural Phases
Phase 1: Connexis and Symbiosis (2008)
The first phase delivered two principal towers — Connexis North and Connexis South — along with the Symbiosis building. Connexis North and South are linked at multiple floors through sky bridges, creating a connected complex with approximately 90,000 square metres of gross floor area between them. Symbiosis, a lower-rise building to the east, was designed for higher-density laboratory use and accommodates several A*STAR SERC institutes.
The architectural brief from JTC emphasised the need for large floor plates — a requirement that came from institute directors who noted that biomedical buildings at Biopolis had been designed for wet-lab configurations rather than the open-plan computing and engineering laboratory environments that SERC institutes needed. Connexis addressed this with column-free spans on select floors.
Phase 2: Solaris (2011)
The Solaris tower, designed by Malaysian architect Ken Yeang and completed in 2011, is the most architecturally distinctive building in the One-North estate. Its signature feature is a continuous spiralling sky terrace that winds up the exterior, planted with tropical vegetation — a literal interpretation of the bioclimatic design principles Yeang had been advocating since the 1990s. Beyond its aesthetic profile, Solaris achieved a Green Mark Platinum certification from the BCA and demonstrated significantly lower cooling energy consumption than comparable towers through passive ventilation strategies.
Solaris houses commercial tenants primarily from the technology sector, including Grab's engineering division (relocated from Mapletree Business City) and a cluster of cybersecurity firms.
Phase 3 and Beyond
Subsequent phases of Fusionopolis development added the Nexus and Galaxis buildings to the north of the original complex, with Galaxis in particular providing larger floor plates for manufacturing-adjacent engineering research. JTC's long-term plans for the Fusionopolis precinct, as outlined in the 2019 One-North Master Plan refresh, include a northern extension linking toward one-north Park and adding further mixed laboratory and office space through the 2030s.
A*STAR SERC Institutes
Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC)
IHPC is Singapore's primary computational science institute, conducting research in computational fluid dynamics, materials modelling, and data analytics. Its work spans fundamental research and applied consulting for industry partners — IHPC scientists have worked on aerodynamics modelling for ST Engineering and structural analysis for JTC's construction projects. The institute operates Singapore's most powerful shared scientific computing cluster, accessible to A*STAR researchers and approved industry collaborators.
Institute of Infocomm Research (I²R)
I²R conducts research across wireless communications, natural language processing, computer vision, and sensor networks. The institute has generated significant patent output in 5G radio protocols and has licensing agreements with several telecommunications hardware manufacturers. Its spoken-language systems team has contributed to multilingual voice recognition adapted for Singapore's multilingual environment — research that has been incorporated into public-sector digital identity systems.
Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE)
IMRE focuses on functional materials, including organic semiconductors, advanced coatings, and nanomaterials for electronics applications. The institute works closely with semiconductor fabricators at the Woodlands and Tuas estates and maintains a cleanroom facility within Fusionopolis shared with industry partners. Research collaborations with GlobalFoundries and Micron have involved process chemistry development for next-generation memory devices.
DSO National Laboratories
DSO National Laboratories, Singapore's primary defence research organisation, occupies a dedicated block within Fusionopolis. Unlike the A*STAR institutes, DSO does not publish most of its research outputs and operates under a separate governance structure reporting to the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF). Its presence at Fusionopolis reflects the co-location strategy — DSO benefits from proximity to SERC researchers in materials and computing, and the laboratories share certain core facilities under bilateral agreements.
Mediapolis: Media and Digital Industry Precinct
While technically adjacent to rather than part of Fusionopolis proper, Mediapolis occupies the south-western edge of One-North and warrants examination in the same article because of its functional connections to the engineering research at Fusionopolis.
Mediapolis was built on the former Wessex Estate and formally designated a media industry precinct in 2014. Its primary tenant anchor is MediaCorp, which completed the relocation of its broadcast facilities from Caldecott Hill to the Mediapolis Campus in September 2015. The campus houses MediaCorp's full broadcast, production, and digital operations across a purpose-built complex with broadcast-grade technical infrastructure.
Netflix chose Mediapolis for its Asia-Pacific content production hub in 2016, establishing production offices and post-production suites that have since supported multiple original productions filmed in Singapore and the region. The Netflix presence attracted further investment from Ubisoft (game development), Bandai Namco (Asia operations), and a range of smaller interactive entertainment studios.
The connection to Fusionopolis is primarily through shared digital infrastructure — the high-bandwidth fibre backbone that JTC operates across One-North — and through technology transfer arrangements. IMRE's research into display materials, for instance, has informed discussions with MediaCorp's production engineering team about LED volume stages, though no formal collaboration agreements have been publicly disclosed.
LaunchPad@one-north and the Startup Ecosystem
The LaunchPad precinct, anchored by BLOCK71 at Ayer Rajah Crescent, occupies the western edge of One-North and represents a different model from the institutional research sub-districts. Rather than long-term leases to large organisations, JTC in LaunchPad uses short-term flexible leases and co-working arrangements designed for high-turnover startup populations.
BLOCK71 was redeveloped in 2011 from a former flatted factory and has since become one of the highest-density startup buildings in South-East Asia by venture count. The precinct accommodates incubators managed by NUS Enterprise (the commercialisation arm of the National University of Singapore), accelerator programmes from IMDA, and venture capital offices from firms including Golden Gate Ventures, Monk's Hill Ventures, and Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia.
The physical proximity of LaunchPad to the A*STAR institutes at Fusionopolis has facilitated technology licensing arrangements in infocomm and materials — the most direct implementation of the original One-North concept of compressing the distance between publicly funded research and commercial application.
Defence and Security Research Concentration
Beyond DSO, Fusionopolis hosts research units from the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) and several contractor offices serving the Singapore Armed Forces' digital transformation programme. This concentration of defence-adjacent research within the same estate as civilian research institutes is a deliberate feature of Singapore's dual-use technology strategy, though it is rarely highlighted in official estate communications.
For the biomedical component of One-North, see Biopolis: Singapore's Dedicated Biomedical Research Cluster. For the estate overview, see One-North: Structure, Districts and Institutional Tenants.