Latest initiatives Accelerate the development of enterprise-grade AI while supporting the nation’s upskilling.
Singapore — March 13, 2026 — SAP Labs today announced a partnership with Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to hire and train AI scientists and machine learning engineers, deepening its role as a global engineering hub for enterprise artificial intelligence and reaffirming its support for Singapore’s AI ambitions. SAP Labs East Asia Singapore has already contributed to SAP’s global AI innovations, including the first set of enterprise AI agents built into SAP’s core cloud applications.
The announcement was made today at SAP d-com Singapore 2026, the company’s annual local developer conference, with guests of honor. Deputy Minister Tan Kiat How, Ministry of Digital Development and Information and Ministry of Health; Attending.
Through IMDA’s TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) initiative, SAP Labs East Asia Singapore (formerly known as SAP Labs Singapore) plans to hire and train 50 graduates and mid-career professionals over the next three years to work on priority development tracks across generative AI, model orchestration, and enterprise AI agents. Trainees who undergo this 12-month structured training and mentorship program will also have the opportunity for rotations or short-term placements in other SAP labs in countries such as Germany, the United States, and India.
The announcement comes as SAP Labs East Asia Singapore crosses a major milestone in its growth journey. Since working to expand the local AI talent pool in 2023, we have tripled the size of our Singapore team, growing to around 400 engineers. Currently, more than 90% of the company’s AI workforce is made up of local hires from universities such as the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
Manik Saha, Managing Director, SAP Labs East Asia; “Growing our AI investments in Singapore is a cornerstone of SAP’s global strategy to accelerate enterprise AI innovation. Since 2023, we have focused on developing AI talent and career opportunities, and have continued to invest in building one of SAP’s most important AI talent hubs. Currently in Singapore. Our teams are developing foundational generative AI, agent AI, and multimodal AI capabilities that are embedded across SAP’s core solutions around the world. These investments are combined with Singapore’s rich talent pipeline and strong national AI.” Build critical AI systems at scale and position Singapore as a strategic engine for SAP’s long-term AI product roadmap. ”
Singapore-made AI agents impact global business
Founded in 2022 in partnership with the Economic Development Board (EDB), SAP Labs East Asia Singapore has filed nearly 160 patents on locally developed AI innovations, 57 of which have been granted in the past three years alone.
The SAP Business AI product engineering team, part of SAP Labs East Asia Singapore, leads the development and delivery of numerous AI capabilities.
Examples include:
- Numerous Joule scenarios for SAP S/4HANA, Intelligent Spend and Business Networks (ISBN), and SAP SuccessFactors allow you to quickly track the execution of various information retrieval, navigation, and information extraction business processes.
- A variety of generative AI capabilities built into SAP SuccessFactors enable increased employee productivity, including generating compensation insights, goal generation, and career insights.
- New features in Document AI, including document information extraction, instant learning, shipping documents, delivery notes, and support for new languages and file types.
Unlike consumer AI tools, these agents are designed for mission-critical environments and integrate natively into SAP systems to ensure reliability, security, and compliance at enterprise scale. More than 34,000 customers around the world are already leveraging SAP Business AI capabilities built into SAP’s cloud portfolio.
SAP Labs East Asia Singapore is committed to continued collaboration with national workforce development initiatives and partnerships with local universities. In March 2025, SAP also announced a partnership with NUS under the Industrial Postgraduate Program (IPP) supported by EDB. This will see nine researchers from local universities join the Singapore institute’s AI team and complete training by the end of 2030. To date, three researchers have already been hired.
With an expanded engineering base and a growing patent portfolio, SAP Labs East Asia Singapore will continue to serve as one of the company’s AI talent development hubs, developing the next generation of talent that will power the company towards a relevant, trustworthy, and responsible AI future.
