Speech by Minister for Defence Mr Chan Chun Sing at the Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES) 59th annual dinner on 3 November 2025

A very good evening to all of you. Thank you for inviting me because it is not often that I get a chance to speak to 1,000 engineers. Since I have the opportunity tonight, I thought – why not? Why not share with you what is on my mind, and where I need your help. I have three big challenges that I would like your help for us to overcome together.

Some time back, I met a foreign friend. He said, “You know, Singapore is an engineered nation.” I was not sure whether he meant that as a compliment. Did he mean that there is nothing very natural about Singapore's success or achievements, or did he mean that we have a very engineering way of doing things?

Well, either way, I took his comment as a compliment because indeed, Singapore, as we always say, have finite resources. And indeed, we have to engineer our way to success in all things that we do – from the buildings to the infrastructures, or even to the kind of society that we have. If the foreign friend meant that we have adopted a very systematic way of thinking, as engineers should, I also took that as a compliment.

Indeed, as Ewe Jin (Preseident of IES) mentioned, we have achieved much over the last 60 years. There are many things that we can be proud of, and many of them are captured in the booklet that we have just seen. But I think going forward, I have three big challenges that I think we need your help and expertise to overcome.

The first is energy. 60 years ago, one of our biggest challenges when we started our nation-building was water. We did not have enough water to drink or feed our industries. But over the last 60 years, we have managed that challenge quite well. Today, we have four national taps. We have water from the reservoirs – we have grown from three reservoirs, MacRitchie, Pierce and Seletar Reservoir, when I was in primary school, to seventeen now – and we have dammed every river possible, minus a few drains that still flow into the sea.

Today, we still have imported water, and also desalination and reverse osmosis. But that does not mean that we have overcome the challenge of water entirely, because what we have converted that challenge into is one of demand for energy. Today, and going forward, if we can solve the energy challenge, we will not only solve the water challenge, we will also open up new vistas on the kind of economy and quality of life that we can have.

To me, if one of the top problems that we had in the last 60 years was water, then in the next 60 years, one of our top challenges must be energy. How do we obtain clean energy? This is where I hope all the engineers in the room and beyond can help us look into. It is about energy production or generation, energy distribution, and it is also about how we manage our demand for energy – from our households to the way we design our buildings and our industrial production systems.

All of us in this hall would know that, moving forward, it is often said that there is great potential for us to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and many new technologies to transform our economy. Yes, that is true, but what is equally true is that in order for us to tap into the potential of this new wave of technological progress – from AI to data centres and high-end computing – the crux would be clean energy. Our ability to access clean energy, generate it carefully, distribute it efficiently and consume it prudently will define the heights that Singapore can achieve. This is my first BHAG – the Big Hairy Audacious Goal – that we hope the engineers in the room and beyond can help us overcome.

The second BHAG that I would like our engineers to help us solve will be space. This is where I often repeat Professor Liu Pao Chuen’s famous question to us when we were young officers, and I still ask this question today to all who are present in this room: what is the land size of Singapore? If we say that we started with over 500 square kilometres, and now we are at 700 square kilometres, then we hold the record for expanding our land area by one-third, without fighting a war. But we are not done. We are certainly not done. I always remember what Professor Liu reminded all of us as junior officers – over 700 square kilometres is not the limit of our potential. If you look at the sea, air and underground space around us, we will know that Singapore’s land potential is never just limited to the two-dimensional flat surface of over 700 square kilometres that we have. Indeed, moving forward, we do not necessarily know the size of the Singapore population, but we certainly know that regardless of the size, we will all desire higher-quality living environments within the finite spaces that we have. We will all want new industries to meet the aspirations of our next generation, and we want many more new canvases that allow the next generations to paint their dreams upon.

The question for us is this: if our predecessors 60 years ago dared to dream of a Singapore from 500 to over 700 square kilometres, will we - in this generation - be able and willing to dream of a Singapore that is even bigger, with more opportunities for our future generations – harnessing our land, air, sea and underground spaces? This challenge will also define the quality of life that we can have in Singapore and the type of industries that we can build here.

Last but not least, the third BHAG. Today, it is often said that we are living in a fragmenting world. Global geopolitics is such that the world is bifurcating, if not fragmenting. It is also often said that it has become harder to earn our living as fellow Singaporeans. That would be too pessimistic a view, in my opinion. Instead, let us ask ourselves: how can the engineering profession help Singapore entrench ourselves in the global value chain, where the expertise that we have will not be easily bypassed by others?

I say this with a lot of feelings because, if we have forgotten this, it is important to remind ourselves that in the depths of the COVID-19 crisis, when we needed critical and essential supplies, money alone could not have bought us what we wanted. Instead, it was our ability to produce things that others wanted in exchange that allowed us to obtain what we needed, on top of our financial resources. Even in a bifurcating world, for us to maintain Singapore’s relevance in this more troubled world, we will have our job cut out for ourselves by making sure that our industries are those that cannot be easily bypassed.

I know many people will think that we are but a small country – that surely cannot compete on the basis of size, quantity or price. And indeed, we should not compete on size, quantity or price. But on the other hand, we have ingredients for us to compete on the basis of speed and ingenuity, and if there is any ecosystem in the world that can bridge the divide in a fragmenting world – that can allow us to achieve speed and innovation – then I think Singapore must be one of them. This will help Singapore secure our niche role even in a fragmenting world.

There are many different fields of engineering present tonight, but regardless of which field of engineering you may be in, what unites us is this same goal that we will want to see engineering as a key competitive advantage, where we can use our engineering expertise not just to overcome our own challenges, but also to provide solutions for the rest of the world that have the same challenges. Engineering can be our secret sauce to anchor key industrial nodes in Singapore, where our relevance continues to be entrenched and we are not easily bypassed. Engineering can be a bridge for us to bring people from diverse persuasions together. It can also be the sauce that allows others who want to test out and pioneer new innovative ideas to come and work with us to bridge differences across political or geopolitical divides.

We must be seen as the place where people want to do business. We are the place where people can protect their intellectual property, and the place where people from different persuasions can come to work together in a trusted environment. So, to me, there is much that the engineering profession can do for ourselves and for Singapore.

I know many of you present tonight will feel that one of our biggest challenges will be how do we attract the next generation to join the engineering profession. That is true. I have just finished my stint in MOE, and I can share with you the good news: the future generation is not a strawberry generation. They may not be inspired by the same things that inspired past generations, like hunger or fear, but they certainly aspire to contribute to the world – to make the world a better place. If we can inspire them with the biggest challenges of the world today, I think they will join the engineering profession.

If we can articulate what kind of society, country, and industries that we want to build for the future, I think they will be inspired to come and join the engineering profession, just as you did. Many of us will know that this generation is inspired not just by the monetary benefits of a job, but more by the challenges that they can overcome and the positive contribution that they can make to Singapore and the world.

I see the bright prospect for the engineering profession, but together we will need to join hands to inspire the next generation with the big challenges of the day. I have just laid out three of them, and I am sure there are many more. If we dare to dream, and if we dare to have a vision of what we can achieve in the next few decades, I think many more will come and join hands with us. Together, I look forward to your contributions and support for us to get to SG100 and beyond, with an even more engineered society – if I may say so.

Thank you very much.