Forget studying abroad: Singapore’s NTU ranks 1st globally in AI & NUS dominates engineering

Disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, any opinions expressed below belong solely to the author.

Singapore’s economy continues to grow at a record pace, fuelled by the AI boom, which has driven enormous demand across the country’s manufacturing and trade sectors.

But besides making things that are important to AI, Singapore is also one of the best places in the world to study AI at one of the local universities.

According to the prestigious ShanghaiRanking, it is actually no. 1 globally.

In the ranking published last month, NTU has successfully defended the top spot it clinched last year, beating competitors from China and North America. It also climbed up by four positions from 6th to 2nd in the related field of Automation & Control.

At this point, you might be thinking that it’s just one ranking, that odd results do happen quite often and depend on invented methodology, but both Singapore universities are doing rather well in other rankings too.

In QS World University Rankings, NTU ranks 4th, and NUS actually jumped over it to take 3rd in Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, trailing only Stanford and MIT.

Over on the list of top AI universities released by US News, the positions are flipped around again, with NTU coming 2nd, while NUS is 5th.

NTU & NUS in Artificial Intelligence

Both schools are also among the world’s best in other subjects, particularly engineering, where NUS consistently ranks in the Top 3 across multiple fields of study—although NTU does win a few points back in the US News ranking.

NTU & NUS in Engineering subjects

QS World University Rankings

U.S. News Best Global Universities 2026–2027

The importance of knowing how to make things

Artificial Intelligence is threatening jobs in many fields of human activity, outperforming us especially in areas involving mathematical calculations. Ultimately, however, we are the ones building and making things in real life, which we later trade with other countries.

AI is an extremely powerful tool, but it needs qualified people to put it to use.

You can’t blindly rely on everything an AI bot is going to tell you, especially when lives are at stake, as is the case when building anything, testing new materials or developing new medicines.

Neither can AI tell you what to make—future products have to be conceived by and designed with humans in mind. We are still going to need many, many engineers to make them.

This is why it’s very encouraging to see Singapore excelling not only at manufacturing and moving goods around the world, but also educating the future generations of people who are going to keep the economy going, thanks to its world-class universities.

• Read other articles we’ve written on Singapore’s current affairs here.

Also Read: 50% of S’pore workers set to earn S$6,000+ as salaries rise. But what’s the take-home pay?

Featured Image Credit: NTU