Crowds gather in the HTX Central Zone of the MTX 2026 exhibition hall for an intimate look at HTX’s latest public safety innovations. (Photo: HTX)
- MTX (Milipol TechX Summit) 2026 officially kicks off in Singapore with an opening ceremony, technology showcases and thought-leading conferences.
- The opening day saw conference sessions spotlight topics such as AI autonomy, cybersecurity and emerging threats, with an insightful keynote address by Arthur Mensch, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Mistral AI.
- The exhibition hall welcomed large crowds for an immersive experience in next-generation innovation showcases.
From foreign dignitaries to academics to industry leaders, thousands of members of the global public safety community converged in Singapore on 28 April 2026 for the first day of MTX (Milipol TechX Summit) 2026.
Themed “Supercharging Innovation for our Safer Tomorrow”, the event is jointly organised by HTX, Civipol, TechX Ventures and Comexposium. The three-day public safety extravaganza is expected to attract over 20,000 visitors from 89 countries.
MTX 2026 was officially launched by an international delegation led by Singapore’s Coordinating Minister for National Security (CMNS) and Minister for Home Affairs Mr K. Shanmugam.
Launching the MTX 2026 summit is (from left) Chief Executive, HTX and Deputy Secretary (Development), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Mr Chan Tsan, Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Interior France, His Excellency Jean-Didier Berger, Coordinating Minister for National Security (CMNS) and Minister for Home Affairs Mr K. Shanmugam, Permanent Secretary (Home Affairs), MHA, Mr Pang Kin Keong, Chief Executive Officer of Civipol and President of the Milipol Network, Mr Préfet Yann Jounot. (Photo: HTX)
Delivering the summit’s welcome remarks was HTX Chief Executive Chan Tsan, who said that the presence of “many leaders, partners, innovators and practitioners” at MTX 2026 proves “the growing importance of this platform, and the shared commitment to advancing public safety through science and technology”.
“MTX is more than a conference and exhibition. It is a platform to strengthen the partnerships that public safety will increasingly depend on,” he added.
Chan Tsan welcomes international guests to MTX 2026. (Photo: HTX/Nicole Lim)
In his opening address, CMNS K Shanmugam discussed how the global technology landscape is being reshaped by geopolitics, with supply chains being rapidly re-configured and technology also being weaponised to create new attack vectors.
“Many of us, not just Singapore, are facing attacks that are extremely sophisticated. In Singapore, our streets remain physically safe. That is the same for many of you. Brunei, Qatar, Malaysia, France, many others. But digitally, the threats have no borders,” he said.
He then shared some of the initiatives that HTX has taken to address the emerging challenges in the public safety landscape, including the agency’s HTxAI (Home Team Artificial Intelligence) Movement, which was launched in 2024, and its moves to partner key industry players to deliver instrumental AI infrastructure and solutions to the Home Team, including NGINE (Next Generation INfrastructurE) and the pre-trained Phoenix large language model (LLM) family.
He also announced that HTX will develop the Home Team’s first satellite, Xplorer, that will enable the detection of hazardous gas plumes and provide earlier warnings to responders.
CMNS K Shanmugam makes an impactful opening address. (Photo: HTX/Nicole Lim)
But countering evolving public safety threats cannot be done without strategic partnerships, as stressed by Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Interior France, His Excellency (H.E.) Jean-Didier Berger in an address.
On the Singapore-France friendship, he described the strategic partnership as having “reached a global level, shaped in particular by cooperation in strategic sectors”.
H.E. Jean-Didier Berger speaks about the partnership between Singapore and France, which has endured many decades. (Photo: HTX/Nicole Lim)
Conversations and big ideas
Following the opening ceremony, keynote speaker, Arthur Mensch, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Mistral AI, took to the stage with an incisive address on “Advancing Strategic Autonomy in AI and Safeguarding Public Safety and Trust”, during which he outlined the development of high-performance, open-weight foundation AI models that enable nations and enterprises to retain strategic autonomy over critical AI capabilities.
He also highlighted the growing collaboration between Mistral AI and HTX in training sovereign AI models, such as the Phoenix family, and developing AI products for public safety uses.
Opportunities abound – according to Arthur Mensch, AI systems were originally applied to accelerate software engineering, but will progressively be delegated to a wealth of white-collared workers. (Photo: HTX/Nicole Lim)
The momentum of the keynote address was then carried into a series of conferences and panel discussions, which featured a host of thought leaders who addressed pressing public safety issues in the world today.
The first panel of the MTX 2026 Summit, “New Frontlines: Emerging Threats Shaping the Future of Public Safety”, which included international public safety experts, discussed the rapid evolution of the threat landscape, and how public safety agencies are confronting threats that are diffuse, decentralised and increasingly difficult to predict. During the discussion, ICA Commissioner Lian Ghim Hua shared that he sees the “biggest shift in the future of public safety as the accelerating pace of technological change, and this is where we see the biggest opportunities and threats affecting public safety today and the future.” (Photo: HTX/Alvin Lim)
The next conference panel, “Innovation under Pressure: Rethinking Risk, Speed and Failure in Public Safety Technology,” brought together industry and academic leaders to discuss ways to encourage forward-looking experimentation and innovation in the field of public safety. (Photo: HTX/Alvin Lim)
The experts in the final conference panel of the day, “Connected, Safe, and Trusted: Partnerships for a Resilient Digital Future,” discuss the role of AI in cybersecurity and the operational and ethical challenges of deploying AI in high-stakes environments. (Photo: HTX/Alvin Lim)
On show: the future of public safety
A few floors below the conference venue, some 270 global exhibitors showcased their latest science and technology innovations for public safety across a 12,000 sqm space.
At the heart of the exhibition were HTX’s exhibits, including the newly announced Xplorer satellite and humanoid robots that could engage with visitors.
Esteemed guests, including Acting Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs and Senior Minister of State (SMS), MHA, Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim (fifth from right), SMS, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and MHA Ms Sim Ann (eighth from left), Minister of State, MHA & Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) Mr Goh Peh Ming (third from right) pose at the HTX Central Zone before starting a tour of the MTX 2026 exhibition space. (Photo: HTX)
SMS Sim Ann witnesses the debut of Phoenix-VL 1.5 Medium, the first LMM in HTX’s Phoenix AI model family and the Home Team’s first multimodal model. Wang Jiale (presenting) says the team is “stoked to launch HTX’s most capable AI model at MTX 2026, where innovation and technology collide”. (Photo: HTX/Nicole Lim)
HTX Principal Scientist, Disruptive Technologies Office (DTO) Brenda Ong speaks to the media about the Xplorer satellite. A collaboration with ST Engineering Satellite Systems, Xplorer is expected to be launched in 2029, and can aid in the early detection of hazardous gas plumes, creating precious lead time in incident responses. (Photo: HTX/Damian Koh)
OceanOneK, the world’s first underwater humanoid robot, makes waves at the HTX Central Zone. HTX maritime systems engineer Jerryl Neo (pictured) says that the robot’s telepresence capabilities “unlock new possibilities for a variety of challenging underwater tasks traditionally performed by divers, eliminating the need for divers in a wide range of complex underwater operations”. (Photo: HTX/Janna Giam)
Permanent Secretary (Home Affairs), MHA, Mr Pang Kin Keong gets up close and personal with HTX’s insect-hybrid robot, which was developed to improve search capabilities in the Home Team’s search and rescue missions. (Photo: HTX/Damian Koh)
HTX Senior Forensic Scientist Clarice Lee shows off the capabilities of the Forensics Reconstruction Dome, which can create immersive site visualisation by recreating post-blast environments and act as a command centre away from the scene. (Photo: HTX)
A visitor watches an automatic replacement of payload in the Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Drone Box System. This is the first drone in Singapore that has been certified to fly over populated areas to assist with incident response and deliver important life-saving equipment to accident sites. (Photo: HTX)
A visitor interacts with HTX’s Community Outreach Robot Ambassador (CORA) in a game of “Simon Says”. (Photo: HTX/Tan Ren Keat)
HTX Deputy Director (Product Management), AI Products Lim Hock Chuan (presenting) introduces the Home Team AI Suite, a series of AI-powered solutions meant to boost operational efficiency, in HTX’s Cyber zone. Among the crowd is Permanent Secretary (Social and Family Development), MSF Mr Aubeck Kam (centre). (Photo: HTX/Tan Ren Keat)
The exhibition floor was buzzing with activity as “lightning talks” took place throughout the day across the various HTX thematic zones. One of them was a session by FieldAI, which included a demonstration of an autonomous quadruped robot navigating a confined space with the aid of real-time 3D mapping and high-fidelity digital twins. (Photo: HTX/Janna Giam)
HTX’s Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Cloud Engineer Ng Pan Yong (right) sits down with Chief Technical Officer of Nutanix Manosiz Bhattacharyya for a fireside chat on Nutanix’s on-premise AI landscape in HTX’s Developer Zone. (Photo: HTX/Janna Giam)
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