NUHS, Singtel and Ericsson Open World's First 6G AI Healthcare Centre

Singapore's National University Health System (NUHS), Singtel and Ericsson have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to build what they describe as the world's first 6G AI centre dedicated to healthcare, backed by a new National University XG AI Centre (NXAC) hosted at NUHS.

The signing on 5 November 2026 brought together NUHS Chief Executive Professor Yeoh Khay Guan, Singtel Singapore CEO Mr Ng Tian Chong, and Mr Daniel Ode, Head of Ericsson Singapore, Brunei and Philippines. The three organisations had an existing partnership; the new agreement extends it toward 5G-Advanced, 6G and what the partners call connected intelligence.

The name "XG" signals the centre's ambition to span successive network generations, starting with 5G and 5G-Advanced today and evolving toward early 6G.

What does each partner bring?

The division of labour is explicit. NUHS provides clinical, academic and research leadership across its 14 entities. Ericsson contributes mobile network technology, network architecture and future 6G research. Singtel adds advanced network deployment and services expertise.

Singtel and Ericsson will act as founding partners of NXAC, which is also positioned as Singapore's first translational R&D centre aimed at serving the global healthcare community.

Professor Yeoh set out the practical target: "Our interest in advanced networks and AI lies in what they can do for our patients across our 14 entities, and the healthcare professionals who care for them." He cited applications ranging from autonomous mobile robots supporting hospital logistics and patient care, to connected mobile devices that extend care into the home, AI-enabled intelligent fabric for the healthcare industry, and human augmentation for advanced surgeries.

A working hospital as testbed

NXAC will operate as a live testbed. Its teams and industry partners will work alongside clinicians, nurses and operations staff to develop and evaluate technologies in a working hospital environment rather than a lab.

The collaboration will also grow people capabilities at the intersection of healthcare, telecommunications, AI and robotics through joint training programmes, fellowships, internships and clinician-engineer collaborations. The partners intend to jointly pursue public research and innovation funding, including a possible corporate laboratory or equivalent industry-public research programme hosted by NUHS and run through NXAC.

Which applications are on the roadmap?

The programme lists concrete development areas, first supported by 5G and 5G-Advanced, with a design intended to evolve toward early 6G:

• Connected wearables for continuous monitoring and preventive care beyond the hospital
• Ambient AI and contactless sensing to help care teams understand patient conditions and identify risks
• Autonomous robotics for logistics, medication delivery and patient support within hospitals
• Spatial intelligence and smarter facilities for managing people, assets and infrastructure
• Extended-reality technologies for robot-assisted surgery, holographic guidance, clinical training and remote specialist collaboration

Ericsson's Daniel Ode framed the network requirement in vendor terms: "Next-generation healthcare applications such as robotic surgery, holomedicine, and remote monitoring demand deterministic network performance that cannot be compromised." He added that the partnership aims to reinforce "Singapore's global leadership as the benchmark for the AI-native hospital."

Why Singapore is investing now

Singtel's Ng tied the initiative to demographics. "As Singapore prepares for a rapidly ageing population and increasingly complex healthcare needs, we have an opportunity to fundamentally rethink how care is delivered with technology," he said, describing the goal as "an intelligent, trusted and borderless healthcare system" that lets more Singaporeans live longer, healthier lives.

The partners present these capabilities as technology that works in the background, supporting clinical teams, making hospital operations more responsive and maintaining continuity of care from hospital to home to community.

No deployment timeline, coverage figures or funding amounts appear in the announcement, so the commercial substance of the MoU rests on what NXAC's hospital testbed delivers. The partners say the programme will move with successive network generations, from 5G-Advanced today toward 6G standardisation in the years ahead.