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Jean Iau

When Jordan Seow joined OpenAI in June 2025, he became the company’s first locally hired forward-deployed engineer in Asia-Pacific, joining a Singapore office that then had fewer than 20 employees.
The 29-year-old is now part of a fast-growing workforce built in Singapore by the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies. Experts say the city state is emerging as a regional hub – not for training the latest AI models, but for the increasingly crucial task of deploying and adapting them for practical use.
Seow told This Week in Asia that the growing presence of global AI firms was opening new doors for local talent.
“It also makes roles that combine technical depth, customer engagement and practical implementation more visible,” Seow said. “You don’t necessarily have to follow a purely research or software engineering path to contribute meaningfully to AI.”
On Wednesday, Anthropic became the latest AI firm to announce plans for a Singapore office, joining the likes of OpenAI, Meta Platforms’ Superintelligence Labs and Alphabet’s Google DeepMind.
Anthropic is currently advertising nine roles in applied AI, finance, marketing, public benefit and sales. OpenAI has committed to creating more than 200 Singapore-based technical roles as it builds its first Applied AI Lab outside the United States.
The influx reflects Singapore’s appeal as a stable, well-connected base with direct access to Southeast Asian markets and global talent. But for the city state, a key question remains: how effectively will this foreign investment translate into high-value jobs and skills for Singaporeans?

Seow, a 2021 National University of Singapore business analytics graduate, worked at an AI start-up before OpenAI. As a forward-deployed engineer, he works with clients to build and integrate technical solutions into their existing infrastructure.
Singapore’s AI expansion comes against the backdrop of a tech rivalry between the US and China, with global companies navigating a complex geopolitical environment.
US AI firms are reportedly increasingly turning to Singapore to recruit international engineers without facing the tightening visa restrictions, high processing fees and longer wait times common in the US.
At the same time, Singapore is pursuing its ambition to become what its Economic Development Board calls the world’s “most AI-powered economy”.
The city state currently offers a Tech.Pass for top tech talent, which will be replaced in January by a dedicated One Pass for AI and tech specialists. Under its updated national AI strategy, Singapore aims to help 10,000 enterprises make meaningful use of the technology over the next three years. Starting in 2027, businesses will also receive enhanced tax deductions on spending towards adopting AI.
Deployment advantage
Stefan Winkler, head of AI & Data Science at the Singapore Institute of Technology’s Infocomm Technology Cluster, said Singapore’s appeal lay in its access to Southeast Asia’s digital economy, regulatory stability, strong intellectual property protections and highly skilled talent pool.
For companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, Singapore offered a base for “regional market development, enterprise deployment, partnerships, customer support, policy engagement, and talent recruitment”, the professor said.
In return, Singapore gained high-value jobs, talent development, foreign investment and closer integration between leading technology providers and local universities, start-ups and state bodies, he added.
Laurence Liew, director of AI innovation at AI Singapore, put the distinction more bluntly: “Frontier pre-training is not here.”
While some localised adaptation research was taking place, Liew said the “thickest layer” of Singapore’s industry was deployment engineering.
OpenAI committed more than S$300 million (US$235 million) in May under a joint agreement with the Singapore government. Google Cloud opened an engineering centre in the city state on Tuesday – partnering with regional giants Grab and DBS – while Microsoft is investing US$5.5 billion in local cloud and AI infrastructure through 2029.
“What is being built here is the layer that turns a model into something a bank, a hospital or a ministry can run in production,” Liew said. “That layer is the one Singapore has spent nine years getting good at.”

Do companies hire locally?
Linda Teo, country manager at ManpowerGroup Singapore, said tech multinationals typically hired locally for roles requiring an understanding of regional regulations, market dynamics and business culture. But other employees were often relocated from global headquarters to support set-up and early launch phases.
Liew agreed, saying local hiring tended to expand as operations matured.
To bridge this gap, AI Singapore runs an apprenticeship programme that has trained over 500 apprentices, adding more than 100 every year. About 99 per cent of graduates were placed in roles within six months, with several companies working with AI Singapore to recruit forward-deployed engineers directly from the programme.
Some government grants also came with local hiring requirements, he said.
That means the gains for Singaporeans may come less from taking the most senior roles immediately than from a gradual widening of technical, customer-facing positions as companies deepen their operations.
The city state also faces the challenge of managing the risks that come with wider AI deployment, particularly as the technology moves into sectors such as finance, healthcare and public services.
“In many ways, Singapore’s approach has been pragmatic,” Winkler said. “Remain open to innovation, but ensure that organisations deploying AI are accountable for how these systems are used.”


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The city state is emerging as a regional hub for turning frontier AI models into practical applications


The city state is emerging as a regional hub for turning frontier AI models into practical applications.


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Why AI giants are choosing Singapore to turn models into real-world tools

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The city state is emerging as a regional hub for turning frontier AI models into practical applications

The city state is emerging as a regional hub for turning frontier AI models into practical applications