One-North is Singapore's principal science and technology estate, covering approximately 185 hectares in the Queenstown planning area, between Buona Vista MRT station and Holland Road. Conceived in the late 1990s and formalised through JTC Corporation's masterplan in 2001, it was designed to aggregate research institutions, universities, and knowledge-intensive commercial tenants within a single walkable precinct — a departure from the dispersed industrial park model that characterised earlier JTC developments.
The estate is not a single campus but a collection of named sub-precincts, each with its own institutional anchor and development programme. Understanding One-North means understanding those sub-precincts independently before examining how they interact.
Development History
The origins of One-North lie in Singapore's 1991 Concept Plan, which identified the Buona Vista corridor as a node for knowledge-based economic activity. The Economic Development Board's subsequent Science and Technology Plan 2010 provided funding commitments that made the land-use transformation viable. JTC was designated master developer in 2000, and construction of Biopolis Phase 1 began in 2002.
The masterplan drew on precedents from Cambridge Science Park, Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, and the Sophia Antipolis cluster in France, but adapted them to Singapore's land constraints and the government's capacity to coordinate anchor tenants before construction rather than waiting for organic demand. This gave One-North a higher density and more deliberate programmatic mix than many comparable estates internationally.
By 2009, with Fusionopolis Phase 1 complete and Biopolis operating at capacity, JTC began extending the estate westward toward Rochester Park and northward toward Ayer Rajah, gradually incorporating Mediapolis and the LaunchPad zone.
Sub-District Layout
Biopolis
The oldest and most recognisable sub-district, Biopolis comprises seven named buildings completed across multiple phases from 2003 onward: Matrix, Proteos, Nanos, Genome, Centros, Neuros, and Synapse. These form a connected cluster above a shared retail podium. Biopolis houses the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC) cluster of A*STAR institutes, including the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), and the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN). Commercial laboratory tenants include GlaxoSmithKline, Takeda, and Roche, among others.
Fusionopolis
Fusionopolis was designed to complement Biopolis by anchoring the engineering and infocomm research community. Phase 1 (2008) delivered the twin Connexis towers and the Symbiosis building, followed by Phase 2 which added Solaris — a distinctive green-draped tower designed by Ken Yeang. Current tenants from A*STAR's Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) include the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC), the Institute of Infocomm Research (I²R), and the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE). Commercial occupants include Thales, Grab, and several defence-related contractors operating under DSO National Laboratories.
Mediapolis
Launched formally in 2014 on the former Wessex Estate grounds, Mediapolis is Singapore's dedicated media technology precinct. MediaCorp, Singapore's dominant broadcasting group, relocated its entire production and broadcast operation to the Mediapolis Campus in 2015. The precinct also accommodates Netflix's Asia-Pacific content production hub (since 2016), Ubisoft Singapore, and a range of post-production facilities.
LaunchPad@one-north
Occupying the western section of the estate near Ayer Rajah Crescent, LaunchPad is JTC's accelerator and startup zone within One-North. The precinct includes BLOCK71, a building redeveloped from a former JTC flatted factory into Singapore's most densely concentrated startup space, housing over 200 technology ventures. BLOCK71 operates as part of a network with BLOCK71 San Francisco and BLOCK71 Jakarta.
one-north Park
A linear green corridor running through the estate, connecting the sub-districts through landscaped paths, outdoor amphitheatres, and rest areas. Designed to encourage informal interaction between researchers and commercial tenants, it also functions as a flood mitigation measure under PUB's Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters programme.
Transport Connectivity
One-North MRT station (Circle Line) sits at the northern edge of the estate, with a second access point at Buona Vista MRT (East-West and Circle Lines). JTC provides internal shuttle connections between Biopolis, Fusionopolis, and the LaunchPad zone. Cycling infrastructure links the estate to the Southern Ridges trails and the National University Hospital campus to the south. Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE) provides direct road access from the CBD and the western industrial estates.
JTC's Role as Master Developer
Unlike private science parks, One-North operates under JTC's ongoing stewardship, which gives the government direct control over tenant mix, lease conditions, and development pacing. JTC uses long-term lease agreements (typically 30 to 60 years) that embed research-use obligations, preventing tenants from converting laboratory space to generic office or retail. This model has maintained the estate's research focus through property market cycles that have diluted the research character of comparable international clusters.
JTC also manages the physical and digital infrastructure within One-North, including the dedicated fibre network, wet lab facilities available on shared terms, and prototyping workshops under the one-north innovation programme.
Economic Footprint
A*STAR's 2023 annual report documented total research expenditure across its One-North institutes at approximately SGD 1.4 billion. Commercial tenants within the estate collectively employed an estimated 18,000 knowledge workers as of 2024. The estate's gross floor area across all sub-districts exceeded 1.8 million square metres by 2023, with further phases of Biopolis and Fusionopolis expansion planned under the URA Master Plan 2030.
For further detail on the biomedical component of One-North, see the Biopolis cluster article. For engineering and media districts, see Fusionopolis and Adjacent Districts.