Open source software firm Red Hat has opened an Asia Pacific AI Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Singapore with support from the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), the company announced on Oct 22.
Red Hat said the centre was set up to meet rising demand in the region for trusted, enterprise-ready AI, and will help organisations shift from AI experimentation to production deployment using its open source technologies and engineering know-how.
Two routes to production
According to the company, the CoE’s engineering teams will work along two complementary paths. One is building reusable software architectures that tackle common industry problems. The other is contributing code directly to upstream open source projects to meet enterprise needs in areas such as system deployment, runtime optimisation and platform management.
The centre has a dedicated innovation team made up of engineers, forward-deployed engineers, architects and project managers focused on getting AI and machine learning deployments to work in customer environments. It will also support skills development for customers and partners in software engineering, automation, cloud-native development and DevSecOps.
Red Hat said locating the engineering capability in Singapore shortens the feedback loop between customers, partners and its core product teams, helping keep its development roadmaps tied to customer requirements and speeding up delivery. The company did not disclose headcount or investment figures for the centre.
Co-engineering with DSTA
The Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) is working with Red Hat to explore and co-develop AI and cloud-native solutions that the agency can apply to defence uses. The two will jointly build scalable solutions in AI, cloud computing, application modernisation and edge computing to support multi-cloud operations.
They will also set up architectures and practices for DevSecOps and day-two operations for AI and cloud systems running at scale, both on-premise and off-premise. Red Hat said the aim is to give DSTA greater agility in anticipating and meeting changing defence requirements.
Gayle Chan, DSTA’s Deputy Chief Executive (Information), said the agency looks forward to co-engineering and scaling AI and cloud-native solutions that fit its technology needs.
Executives weigh in
Daniel Aw, Vice President and General Manager of Red Hat Asia Pacific, said “AI adoption is moving rapidly from experimentation towards execution”, and that organisations need open platforms and hands-on engineering support to make that move responsibly. He added that EDB’s backing allows Red Hat to grow the centre in Singapore.
Yueh Chinn Seah, Vice President of Digital Industry Singapore, said the centre deepens Singapore’s capabilities in open source enterprise AI, strengthens its position as an AI hub and creates opportunities for local talent to build engineering skills.
Red Hat said the CoE is aligned with Singapore’s National AI Strategy and will contribute talent, technology and real-world use cases to the wider AI ecosystem. No timeline or milestones for the centre were given.
