[MEDIA RELEASE] HTX opens Humanoid Robotics Centre to advance Embodied AI for public safety

• Home Team Humanoid Robotics Centre (H2RC) to empower humanoid robots with Embodied AI to tackle routine, physically demanding or dangerous tasks for Home Team operations
• H2RC to be a sandbox and collaborative platform to partner Home Team Departments, industry, universities and research institutes to co-develop innovative solutions that will force multiply the Home Team
• HTX and ST Engineering sign MOU to deepen collaborations at H2RC in R&D, tech and platform integration, and cybersecurity

SINGAPORE, 30 September 2026 – HTX (Home Team Science and Technology Agency) announced the opening of the Home Team Humanoid Robotics Centre (H2RC) – dedicated to training humanoid robots with Embodied AI capabilities, to force multiply the Home Team and keep Singapore safe and secure.

Humanoids will be trained to augment human officers in carrying out routine, physically demanding or dangerous tasks, allowing officers to focus on work that requires judgement, empathy and discretion, while at the same time, keeping them safe. The potential use cases under exploration include handling hazardous material (HazMat), investigating post-blast scenes, searching prison cells for contraband, and restocking ambulance emergency medical supplies. 

WHY USE HUMANOID ROBOTS?

The humanoid form factor was chosen for its ability to adapt to environments designed for humans. While the commercial sector is primarily focused on training humanoid robots for manufacturing, household and consumer applications, there is less focus on advancing Embodied AI solutions for public safety needs. H2RC will therefore be dedicated to developing such capabilities to augment Home Team operations.

H2RC COMBINES DATA WITH ENGINEERING EXPERTISE

Development of Embodied AI solutions that perform in real missions requires data. As data for public safety operations cannot be bought off the shelf, it must be captured by dedicated tools and systems, then reviewed and annotated to train Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models. The performance of these AI models needs to subsequently be validated in realistic operational environments. H2RC will do this by bringing together Home Team operational experience and HTX engineering expertise with specialised equipment.

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE HELMING THE CENTRE?

This combination of capabilities is channeled into H2RC’s work by engineers in HTX’s Robotics, Automation and Unmanned Systems (RAUS) Centre of Expertise. They have expanded their foundational expertise in robotics hardware, electronics and software to embrace frontier technology, such as Embodied AI.

WHAT ARE THE SPECIAL ELEMENTS OF THIS CENTRE?

H2RC’s 29,000 sq ft footprint – roughly the equivalent of six basketball courts – provides the space to set up the realistic environments and detailed mock-ups of public safety scenarios that are necessary to collect and diversify data. The centre supports the end-to-end Embodied AI development cycle, from motion-capture systems that develop humanoid motor skills, to teleoperation, human demonstration and simulation that generates training data. Beyond data collection, H2RC also enables the training and evaluation of VLA models, the development of agentic AI for multi-step mission execution, and the integration and validation of embodied AI capabilities for public safety operations.

H2RC AS A SANDBOX AND COLLABORATION PLATFORM

To foster a strong ecosystem around H2RC’s work, the centre will serve as a sandbox and collaboration platform that brings Home Team Departments, industry and academia together to co-develop Embodied AI solutions for public safety.

A key partnership for H2RC was cemented at the centre’s launch, where HTX and ST Engineering signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen existing collaborations to advance robotics and Embodied AI capabilities through joint research and development, technology and platform integration, strategic industry and academic partnerships, and cybersecurity collaboration.

Harnessing data to train AI models also requires secure and scalable computing resources. HTX has therefore worked with Singtel RE:AI to upgrade its sovereign AI infrastructure, NGINE (Next Generation Infrastructure), with Singapore’s first operationalised NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GB300 GPUs, to power Embodied AI and multimodal AI model training for H2RC and beyond.

Embodied AI development at H2RC will proceed iteratively, starting with capability development before progressing to trials and validation. Before operational deployment, systems will be rigorously tested for cybersecurity and reliability. The first humanoid robot is targeted to begin working alongside Home Team officers in a real operational setting, performing defined tasks safely and reliably, by 2028.