Singapore, 22 October 2026 - Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open-source solutions, today introduced Red Hat’s APAC AI Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Singapore. Supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), the Centre will help organisations evolve from AI experimentation towards production deployment using Red Hat’s open-source technologies and engineering expertise.

Red Hat has established the Centre to meet growing regional demand for trusted, enterprise-ready AI. The CoE’s engineering teams will help organisations move AI workflows into production through two complementary paths: developing reusable software architectures that address common industry challenges, and contributing code directly to upstream open-source projects in an effort to address enterprise requirements in system deployment, runtime optimisation, platform management and more.

To harness the CoE’s capabilities, the Singapore Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) is collaborating with Red Hat to explore and co-develop AI and cloud-native solutions that strengthen capabilities in these areas and that the DSTA can then apply to defence applications.

Basing these engineering capabilities in Singapore shortens the feedback loop between customers, partners and Red Hat’s core product teams. This connection helps maintain development roadmaps grounded in customer requirements, accelerates solution delivery and strengthens Red Hat’s ability to co-innovate with organisations across the region.

Nurturing local talent to promote a thriving AI ecosystem

The AI CoE will give organisations expanded access to Red Hat’s AI, hybrid cloud and platform engineering expertise, while strengthening in-region technical capabilities in Singapore. The CoE includes a dedicated innovation team comprising engineers, forward-deployed engineers, architects and project managers all centred on making AI/ML deployments successful in customer environments. The Centre will also support skills development in areas critical to modern AI deployment, including software engineering, automation, cloud-native development and DevSecOps, for customers and partners to strengthen their own specialised internal capabilities.

Bringing production necessities into the centre

Drawing on Red Hat’s open-source expertise and DSTA’s engineering capabilities and defence domain knowledge, both organisations will jointly develop scalable solutions in AI, cloud computing, application modernisation and edge computing to support multi-cloud operations. This includes jointly establishing architectures and practices for Development, Security and Operations (DevSecOps) and Day 2 operations for AI and cloud systems at scale, across both on-premise and off-premise environments.

These efforts aim to accelerate the development and deployment of AI solutions at scale, enabling greater agility for the DSTA in anticipating and addressing evolving defence requirements in the AI era.

Red Hat’s APAC AI Centre of Excellence aligns with Singapore’s National AI Strategy, providing contributions to the country’s broader AI ecosystem with talent, technology and real-world use cases. EDB’s support for the Centre, Red Hat’s open-source AI expertise and DSTA’s co-engineering collaboration provide a model for translating AI capability-building into practical innovation in Singapore and across Asia Pacific.

Daniel Aw, Vice President & General Manager, Red Hat Asia Pacific said:“AI adoption is moving rapidly from experimentation towards execution, and organisations need open platforms and hands-on engineering expertise to make that transition responsibly. Through Red Hat’s APAC AI Centre of Excellence, we are expanding that capability in Singapore. EDB’s support enables us to grow the Centre here, while our co-engineering with DSTA demonstrates how it can be applied to complex, real-world use cases.”

Yueh Chinn Seah, Vice President, Digital Industry Singapore said:“Red Hat’s APAC AI Centre of Excellence deepens Singapore’s capabilities in open-source enterprise AI. The Centre bolsters Singapore’s position as a key AI hub creating opportunities for local talent to deepen their engineering capabilities. We are excited to work with Red Hat to scale AI solutions across Southeast Asia and beyond.”

Gayle Chan, Deputy Chief Executive (Information), Defence Science and Technology Agency said:“DSTA continually explores new approaches to strengthen the capabilities we deliver for Singapore’s defence. Through our collaboration with Red Hat under the AI Centre of Excellence, we look forward to co-engineering and scaling AI and cloud-native solutions relevant to our technology needs for cloud and on-premise environments. As threats become more complex, it is important that we continue to push the boundaries of technology and innovation to stay ahead of the curve.”

Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker