Johnson Controls has opened a S$50m smart building innovation centre in Singapore in partnership with Microsoft and the National University of Singapore (NUS).

The OpenBlue Innovation Center aims to create a future-ready built environment for Singapore and the region. The facility, located within the NUS School of Design & Environment, will be a living laboratory for a breed of customisable, contact-free applications built on Johnson Controls OpenBlue digital technology suite.

The centre is pioneering the use of a common configuration language that bridges core building technology, as well as behavioural, wellness and spatial data to meet demands for safety and sustainability in connected spaces.

It wants to develop digital technology that can improve performance, reliability, safety and energy usage of buildings and its occupants. The company has similar sites in Cork (Ireland), Milwaukee and Birmingham (USA), Wuxi (China), Pune (India) and San José (Costa Rica).

These centres are all designed to accelerate the reinvention of urban living, with investments targeted at digital innovation.

“Artificial intelligence and machine learning will play a pre-eminent role in reshaping how we create comfort for people and energy efficiency in a building,” said Mike Ellis, executive vice president for Johnson Controls. “Our unprecedented focus of co-innovating cutting-edge technologies through collaborations such as with NUS will spark greater innovation and true differentiation for our customers.”

The 240m² centre, housed in SDE4, Singapore’s first new-build net-zero energy building, will have sensors fitted throughout the indoor space, including overhead ventilation to measure air flow. The lab staff and collaborating researchers will collect and analyse data using Johnson Controls technology and analytics to obtain qualitative and quantitative understanding of the interactions among technology, well-being and indoor environments.

The ecosystem of partners will tap on the intelligence generated from the centre to create evidence-backed technology for healthier, safer connected indoor spaces.

NUS will serve as a testbed for the OpenBlue Innovation Center, which will help the university in its efforts to develop a smart, sustainable and safe campus for its staff and students. The collaboration also includes joint research and innovation in the areas of built and urban environments, particularly in data analytics, sustainability and operations, as well as people and wellness. There will also be opportunities for collaborations on teaching and internship programmes.

OpenBlue is a complete suite of connected services that combine the company’s 135 years of building expertise with digital technology. This open digital platform, when integrated with Johnson Controls’ core building systems and enhanced by ecosystem partners, connects traditionally separate systems to create capabilities for safer, more agile and sustainable space use.

With support from the Singapore Economic Development Board, the facility is expected to have more than 100 employees within four years. Johnson Controls employs around 800 employees throughout Singapore, and has products installed in many of the commercial buildings in Singapore.

The company has a global team of 105,000 experts in more than 150 countries. Its portfolio of building technology includes names such as Tyco, York, Metasys, Ruskin, Titus, Frick, Penn, Sabroe, Simplex, Ansul and Grinnell.

• Johnson Controls has launched a flexible service suite to its customers in Asia Pacific. The suite will leverage OpenBlue digital technology to power remote and contactless service. With more than 20 unique customisable options to cater to rising demands for adaptable, healthier and safer buildings, the offering will be available in Asia Pacific from this month.

Under the service suite, building owners can choose from four tiers: optimum, expert, enhanced or essential. The capabilities include:

• Remote management of HVAC, fire and security services in real time to ensure equipment performance and uptime availability;
• Access to round-the-clock, direct availability of remote expert team;
• Access to automated, on-demand equipment condition reports for active and real-time diagnostics; and
• Use of predictive analytics to improve energy consumption and enhance performance analysis. In addition, it allows for proactive planning processes and performance indexing, and provides roadmaps for upgrading.