Thought leaders from Singapore, Shanghai and Edinburgh examined how AI was increasingly shaping how people learned, worked, made decisions, and accessed services at the 2026 SMU-Fudan Global Forum at SMU on 3 October. Centred on the theme of “Living with Intelligence: AI, Human Flourishing and Liveable Societies”, the Forum examined AI’s potential to improve lives; the institutional and governance frameworks needed to build trust; and the changing nature of leadership as organisations combined technological intelligence with human judgement, creativity and responsibility.
In his opening address, SMU Provost Professor Alan Chan framed the Forum question as “what we want AI to do for the benefit of society and humanity”. The timeliness and importance of this focus was underscored by co-host Fudan Vice President Zhou Lei who noted that “AI is profoundly reshaping economic development, social governance and people’s way of life worldwide.”
Possibilities and precautions
First keynote speaker SMU School of Computer Science and Information Systems Associate Dean Professor Zhu Feida cautioned that while AI assistants have successfully plugged information gaps for new workers – 30 years of “know how” can be preserved and passed onto new hires – excessive automation could also weaken how future workers build expertise. He called for explicit learning, human review of AI outputs and incentives for knowledge sharing.
Next up, Fudan School of Economics Dean Zhang Jun reasoned that countries could flourish by building on their own strengths, citing how “reverse technological innovation” - improving on existing technologies rather than starting from scratch - together with a unified large market, drove China’s rapid rise in EVs, renewable energy and AI Development.
Representing industry, Mary Ag CEO and Founder Frank Qin Chuhan extolled the potential of AI to help achieve “food sovereignty” for communities, sharing with participants how his company leveraged AI in vertical farming to fine-tune light, climate, nutrients, and airflow. This enabled the lowering of energy cost that had “sunk” many vertical farms.
Thereafter, Panel 1 discussion on “Living Well with AI: Interdisciplinary Pathways to Human Flourishing and Liveable Societies” dived into societal implications of AI and the interdisciplinary approaches needed to ensure its development contributed positively to human flourishing.
This was followed by a second panel discussion on “Leadership in an Intelligent World: Shaping Organisations and Society in the Age of AI”.
Singapore and China insights, perspectives and networks
This Global Forum was organised in conjunction with the launch of the SMU-Fudan DBA (Tech) programme which attracted 19 students from China, Hong Kong SAR and Singapore, from industries, including financial services, investment and insurance, AI, semiconductors, logistics technology, proptech, public governance, healthcare and business services.
This joint SMU-Fudan programme draws on the complementary strengths of Singapore and China, providing participants opportunities to develop cross-border insights, strategic networks and a deeper understanding of technology-driven business transformation across markets.
The growth and development of the SMU-Fudan partnership
Since the 18-year SMU-Fudan partnership was elevated to a strategic-level in September 2025 (see Fudan University and Singapore Management University Forge Strategic Partnership for Greater Societal Impact | SMU Newsroom), the two universities have embarked on several new academic and research collaborations that seek to deliver societal impact.
The participation of Professor Ramamoorthy from the University of Edinburgh, a partner of both SMU and Fudan, at this edition of the Global Forum signals the potential for the bilateral partnership to grow into wider international collaborations. His call for “universities to work together to bring people from different parts of the world together to exchange ideas for long-term collaborations” reinforces this possibility, with the forum providing a platform to build those connections.