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Thales expands Singapore operations with 'digital factory'
French multinational Thales has added Singapore to its so-called “digital factory” network to accelerate innovation and digital transformation for the group and its customers in Asia Pacific.
The Singapore centre is expected to have a team of 30 by 2019, including scientists, software engineers, designers, scrum masters and cybersecurity experts.
There are also plans to have it at least double in size over the next three to five years, said Olivier Flous, Thales’ vice-president (Digital Transformation and Digital Factory), during the centre’s opening on Thursday (29 November). The site represents an investment of over 20 million euros (S$31.2 million) over the next five years.
Facility for creating, testing products
The company launched its first digital factory in Paris in July 2017 and another in Montreal, Canada, later that year. The Paris facility employs more than 230 people.
Typically, a team of eight to 10 people at the digital factory will work with end-users to co-create and develop a “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) using technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
The product is developed and tested with the customers. When the product is ready to be deployed, it is transferred to the Thales operating units for commercial roll-out.
Thales, which has been in Singapore since 1973, employs close to 700 people and expects its headcount to rise to more than 2,000 when the merger with chipmaker Gemalto is completed by the first quarter next year, Flous said. Thales last year agreed to buy Gemalto for 4.8 billion euros.
Thales’ Singapore’s facilities include a research and technology centre, two research labs with Nanyang Technology University as well as an Innovation Hub in Changi.
Opportunities for Singaporeans
The decision by Thales to site one of their innovation centres in Singapore “will allow Singaporeans to have many more opportunities to learn and be part of a global network”, said Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing.
“This is the kind of network we want to see being built up in Singapore and beyond.”
