Dassault Systèmes to open ASEAN Industrial AI Virtual Twin Lab in Singapore

Dassault Systèmes will set up its ASEAN Industrial AI Virtual Twin Lab in Singapore, hiring more than 30 highly skilled AI professionals within its first five years. The French software company signed a memorandum of understanding with the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), it said in a statement on Wednesday.

The lab becomes Dassault's regional hub for developing, validating, and deploying industrial AI and virtual twin solutions across ASEAN. Its hires will cover four disciplines: AI engineering, virtual twin development, software systems design, and industry consulting. That's roughly six specialist roles a year, a hiring pace that signals a genuine build-out rather than a flagship office.

What will the lab actually build?

The operation will run on Dassault's 3DEXPERIENCE platform, combining AI, engineering knowledge, and simulation. Two workstreams stand out for regional businesses.

First, the lab will help ASEAN enterprises design AI data centres and improve energy efficiency — a direct answer to the region's surging compute demand and its power constraints. Second, it will develop reusable tools to accelerate deployment of 3D UNIV+RSES, Dassault's next-generation virtual twins that pair physics-based AI with modelling, real-time simulation and data science.

Reusable tooling matters here. If the lab standardises deployment templates, ASEAN manufacturers won't each have to reinvent the integration work — that's what typically slows virtual twin adoption outside large multinationals.

Why Singapore?

Cindy Koh, executive vice-president of EDB, said the lab supports Singapore's ambition under the National AI Mission for Advanced Manufacturing to become a leading hub for industrial AI. The lab draws on the country's digital infrastructure and skilled workforce, with the stated aim of strengthening industrial AI capabilities and creating high-value jobs.

Samson Khaou, executive vice-president for Asia Pacific at Dassault Systèmes, said the lab would use Singapore's AI-native solutions and adapt them to regional needs to speed adoption across the region. In practice, that means Singapore-based development with localisation for Southeast Asian markets.

Who's in scope?

The lab will serve enterprises in six markets: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. That covers the region's major manufacturing bases, from Vietnamese electronics assembly to Thai automotive.

Dassault Systèmes brings scale to the effort. Founded in 1981, the company says its 3DEXPERIENCE platform serves 390,000 customers across industries — a base of almost four hundred thousand clients it can plausibly pitch industrial AI services into.

What does this change for practitioners?

For ASEAN manufacturers and industrial operators, the lab adds a regional access point for virtual twin and industrial AI expertise that previously required engagement with global teams. For Singapore's tech talent market, it adds 30-plus senior AI and software roles over five years in a priority sector under the National AI Mission.

The deal also lands amid broader momentum: EDB has separately reported that Singapore manufacturers remain optimistic on the back of sustained global AI-related demand. The lab's success will hinge on whether its reusable 3D UNIV+RSES tools genuinely cut deployment time for regional clients — that, not the headcount, is the number to watch.