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

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.”