Prof Su Rong: The Power of Timing and Partnerships

Prof Su Rong, faculty at the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, is the winner of the 2025 College of Engineering Award for Industrial Excellence. This award recognises success in building effective, functional, and synergistic working collaborations with industry partners.

More than a decade ago, Prof. Su Rong, Director at the Centre for System Intelligence and Efficiency, foresaw the importance of integrating energy efficiency into buildings and began laying the foundations for smart, adaptive systems.

Today, his AI-driven technology helps match HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) demand with system efficiency in real time, reducing energy use in pilot projects by 15–20 percent without costly hardware upgrades.

The system analyses how temperature changes inside a building based on the environment and the people inside, as well as how efficiently the building’s chiller plant that cools water for air conditioning is operating. It then matches the cooling needs of occupants with the most efficient way to run the equipment using software and machine learning.

Su acknowledged that the climate crisis makes this innovation especially important and urgent, yet the recent advances in AI that only just made it possible.

The other necessary ingredient to its success is partnerships in major real estate firms who have been willing to give the systems a try.

"Having such partnerships with commercial heavyweights serves multiple purposes, all critically important for ensuring sustainability of impactful research,” the professor explained.

“First, it presents true challenges faced by the industry, as no one knows the market needs better than them; it also provides rich opportunities and resources to test new cutting-edge technologies; and lastly, it provides a vivid testimony and public exposure of viability of invented technologies, if adopted by those heavyweights,” he furthered.

For these partners, the benefits are immediate and go beyond climate change. Every percentage point of energy saved means money in the bank, even as the science of optimization continues to evolve.

“The companies saw the numbers and they were very happy,” Su stated.

With momentum on their side, the professor and his team have already transformed their research into a startup venture.

His ultimate vision is buildings that adapt intelligently to other needs of their occupants, beyond matching energy consumption. He also predicts that buildings will achieve sustainability, or net zero energy use in around ten years.

Su’s broader work includes control and optimization with applications in smart cities and related topics, like building management and mobility control. He aims to make urban environments more intelligent and sustainable overall, aided by the further engagement of industry partners.

 

To learn more about Prof Su’s work visit his research page.

You can also read more about the other  2025 CoE Award winners.

Story by Laura Dobberstein, NTU College of Engineering