SINGAPORE — German engineering firm Siemens launched yesterday its Digitalisation Hub in the Republic, bringing together “multi-disciplinary specialists” from different businesses. The centre will support digitalisation efforts of regional companies in urban infrastructure, industry and healthcare sectors, according to the company.

The launch took place simultaneously at parallel events in Singapore and at Siemens’ headquarters in Munich. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the president and chief executive of Siemens Joe Kaeser unveiled a plaque in Munich to mark the opening, while Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) S Iswaran and the CEO of Siemens Singapore Armin Bruck opened the hub in Singapore.

Noting the “long-standing and deep partnership” between Siemens and Singapore, Mr Lee pointed to the company’s role in helping to create jobs and build up the Republic’s technical competencies in oil and gas, power, transport and healthcare. Siemens hires over 1,500 employees and its spin-off companies such as Infineon contribute more than 4,000 jobs, said Mr Lee.

“Projects like the Siemens Digitalisation Hub are part of Singapore’s journey towards becoming a Smart Nation”, and the digital economy is a driver for our future economy, he added. Recently, the IMD World Competitiveness Centre ranked Singapore first in global digital competitiveness, and the Republic hosts about half of South-east Asia’s data centre capacity, he said.

Starting with 60, the hub will employ 300 digitalisation specialists by 2022. Supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board, the centre brings together data scientists, solution architects, software engineers, system experts and domain specialists from the urban infrastructure, industrial and healthcare sectors. “We have built a strong digital infrastructure. Companies can try out innovative ideas in Singapore before scaling up for the region. Small- and medium-sized enterprises also benefit from programmes to improve their operational performance, productivity and efficiency,” Mr Lee said.

The hub will tap Siemens’ cloud-based platform, MindSphere that offers data analytics, connectivity capabilities and tools for developers.

This platform helps evaluate and process data to gain insights and optimise asset performance for maximised productivity, Siemens said.

“Singapore is the ideal location for this hub because of its distinctively advanced industrial and urban infrastructure development, combined with the Government’s Smart Nation thrust to enable a digital economy,” said Mr Kaeser. “With this Digitalisation Hub, we’re creating synergy and an eco-system for our teams, customers and business partners to tap the benefits that digitalisation can bring.”

At the event, Siemens signed three collaboration agreements with Singapore partners. Nanyang Technological University will work with Siemens to create data-driven innovations for urban infrastructure such as self-driving vehicles and optimal efficiency of green buildings.

Singapore Power will collaborate with Siemens to build a next-generation energy management software platform to save energy and cost.

Singapore Technologies Electronics will partner Siemens to co-create new mobility applications in the field of transportation — roads, harbours, airports and mass transit.

Citing the example of Mr Chung Keng Yang, an electrical engineer by training who joined under Siemens’ Engineering Graduate Programme, Mr Lee said Singapore values working with companies like Siemens that invest in the training and development of their employees.

After on-the-job training at Siemens and several courses in data analytics, Mr Chung is now taking on more complex job roles, such as developing service support platform which provides operations analytics to Siemens and its customers. Rumi Hardasmalani