Siemens' digitalisation hub will be home to 60 specialists who will develop internet of things applications in areas including advanced manufacturing and healthcare.
Global industrial technology supplier Siemens is opening a digitalisation hub in Singapore to develop internet of things (IoT)applications that cater to the needs of diverse industries in Southeast Asia.
Located in Macpherson in the central region of Singapore, the facility will be the first of its kind globally and will tap on Mindsphere – Siemens’ cloud-based IoT operating system – to develop and commercialise digital systems across all Siemens business divisions.
It will house 60 specialists from various disciplines at first, but Siemens expects to grow this number five-fold by 2022. These professionals will experiment, learn, develop and test products and services that help businesses become more efficient and sustainable.
Its key focus areas are urban infrastructure, advanced manufacturing and healthcare, which are areas that Singapore is looking to transform through its smart nation blueprint.
Siemens is not working alone in its efforts to develop IoT-based applications. It is also partnering Nanyang Technological University in areas such as self-driving vehicles and green building technology, as well as energy supplier SP Group to build an energy management platform that enables planning, surveillance and predictive maintenance of Singapore’s electricity network.
“With this digitalisation hub, we’re creating synergy and an ecosystem for our teams, customers and business partners to tap into the benefits that digitalisation can bring,” said Joe Kaeser, president and CEO of Siemens.
“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,” he added.
The launch of the facility took place simultaneously in Singapore and Munich, where Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong attended the G20 Summit as the convenor of Global Governance Group, an informal grouping of 30 small and medium-sized countries.
In his address, Lee said Siemens and Singapore have had a longstanding and deep partnership that dates back to 1908 when Siemens started with a technical bureau operating as a sales office.
Today, Siemens has its Asean regional headquarters in Singapore, employing over 1,500 people. Its spin-off companies like Infineon have significant presence in Singapore, contributing another 4,000 additional jobs and the annual revenue is 650 million euros. Next year, Siemens would have been in Singapore for 110 years.” he said.
“Siemens has been a steadfast partner and participant in our development story. It has created jobs and built up our capabilities in key industries like oil and gas, power, transport and healthcare. Siemens’ choice of Singapore to pioneer its integrated digitalisation hub reflects its confidence in our long-term relationship,” he added.
Despite the allure of IoT, adoption of the technology is still in its infancy in Southeast Asia. In a survey conducted by Asia IoT Business Platform, 51% of organisations in Asean said they still need to better understand the benefits of IoT. Only 8% have implemented IoT, though the benefits are not yet clear to those organisations.
Source: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450422738/Siemens-opens-Singapore-digitalisation-hub-in-IoT-push