PM Lee Hsien Loong at the Launch of the Siemens Digitalisation Hub in Munich, Germany

Mr Joe Kaeser, Chief Executive Officer of Siemens AG,
Dr Roland Busch, Chief Technology Officer,
Mr Cedrik Neike, Member of the Managing Board,

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, here and in Singapore.

Good morning to all of you here in Munich, and to those in Singapore, a very good afternoon. I am very happy to be here on this beautiful morning to join you for the launch of the Siemen Digitalisation Hub. I am very glad too, that people both in Munich and Singapore are participating in this launch through the live video feed. It shows how technology can change our everyday lives, improve the way we do things, and bring people across the oceans closer together.

Siemens and Singapore have a longstanding and deep partnership. Siemens first set up in Singapore more than one hundred years ago, in 1908. Singapore was then a British colony and Siemens started with a technical bureau operating as a sales office. It is fair to say that that beginning has led to success.

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.

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.

The Digitalisation Hub will be the first of its kind globally and will tap on Siemens’ cloud-based platform, MindSphere. It will develop and commercialise digital solutions across all Siemens business divisions. It will pursue projects in urbanisation and digital industrialisation, and ride on the rapid transformation of Singapore and the region.

The Hub is partnering with Singapore companies and universities on major projects. Singapore Power, Nanyang Technological Universities and others too, like ST Electronics, which it is going to work together with to co-create mobility applications. The Siemens Digitalisation Hub is part of Singapore’s journey towards becoming a Smart Nation. The Digital Economy is a major element of our future economy.

Recently, the IMD World Competitiveness Centre ranked Singapore first in global digital competitiveness. Singapore currently hosts about half of Southeast Asia’s data centre capacity. We have built a strong digital infrastructure. In Singapore, we hope companies can try out innovative ideas expeditiously in a favourable, conducive environment, with a supportive government, before scaling up for the region and the world.

The Siemens Digitalisation Hub in Singapore will boost our Smart Nation efforts, and at the same time, scale up innovative digital solutions for overseas markets.

PM Lee Hsien Loong

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises can benefit from programmes to improve their operational performance, productivity and efficiency. To support these efforts, we need a first class workforce in Singapore, one which has the right skills and capabilities. The Government is imbuing our children, the workforce of tomorrow, with digital skills. Schools introducing basic coding skills, universities implementing compulsory undergraduate modules on digital literacy. Under our SkillsFuture programme, we have rolled out study awards and training schemes to boost our engineering workforce in digital-related fields, like computer programming, data science or cybersecurity.

We value companies like Siemens, who invest in the training and development of their employees. Employees like Chung Keng Yang, who is working in Siemens Singapore today. He is an electrical engineer by training and was accepted into Siemens’ Engineering Graduate Programme. Through on-the-job training at Siemens, as well as taking several courses in data analytics and user interface, Keng Yang is now able to take on more complex responsibilities like developing a service support platform, which provides operations analytics to Siemens and also to its customers.

Siemens has been a longstanding and valuable partner in developing Singapore’s industries and workforce. The Siemens Digitalisation Hub in Singapore will boost our Smart Nation efforts, and at the same time, scale up innovative digital solutions for overseas markets.

I thank Siemens for your strong confidence in Singapore and I commit you that we will live up to it. I wish you many more years of fruitful partnership as we continue to push Singapore’s economy and technology to the next frontier.

Thank you very much.