Singapore Streamlines Construction Robotics Regulations

Caption language: en · Fetched: 2026-07-28

Singapore is streamlining regulations in construction as part of new measures to speed up the adoption of robotics in the sector. It will also support firms to scale successful trials and help contractors identify trusted technologies to save time, manpower, and costs. Nick Kater reports. >> Robots that do the heavy lifting and put on the finishing touches. Construction tech like these may help improve operations. But as one solution provider shares, adoption has been slow. >> Getting robots to work in these very challenging environments because these environments have very limited connectivity, for example, and they're very unstructured and very messy. In general, um robotics could be seen, perceived as being very uh complex, um and um difficult to understand and difficult to deploy. >> That's something that could now change.

Under a new program, contractors can adopt proven solutions instead of going through their own trial-and-error processes. Like this one, which uses AI and 360° cameras to capture a digital record of construction sites, making it easier to track progress. >> When we started out 3 years ago, it's not easy to convince uh contractors that we are one of the most efficient and practical solution for them. This gives contractors a lot of confidence in being able to adopt us as a Singaporean technology and allowing us to then continue to scale up our uh commercialization across Singapore. >> Under a new procurement model, pilot solutions can scale to other projects under GTC without going through new tenders. Firms testing productivity solutions in sandboxes will also have rental fees waived. >> You need to have track record.

You might need to have security deposit. You might need to have to comply to many, many different uh approved permits and approvals that a startup would struggle to have. And the whole idea is we will still call tender for pilots. But once a pilot is successful, we have a clear pathway to directly deploy these solutions onto our actual construction sites. >> Regulatory hurdles are also being removed. For instance, operators no longer need to be stationed inside smart hoists, a change expected to save both manpower and costs. >> Our rules and regulations must keep pace with innovation and technology adoption in the BE sector. If there's an outdated rule that's creating unnecessary red tape for you, please tell us.

Let my colleagues and I know where the bottlenecks are so that we can work with you to clear the path and make things better by helping our companies to save time, save money, and save manpower. >> Mr. Chee adds more initiatives are on the way to help companies improve productivity and be future-ready.