Singtel's NCS opens an AI Mission Centre in Singapore and plans to triple its forward-deployed engineers to 300+

NCS opened an AI Mission Centre in Ang Mo Kio, Singapore, on October 29, built to help organisations move AI projects from proof of concept to production. Alongside the launch, the Singtel-owned firm said it will grow its pool of forward-deployed engineers, AI specialists who work directly inside client teams, from about 100 today to more than 300 over the next two years.

CEO Sam Liew said the increase will come from both reskilling existing staff and hiring, and that the engineers will co-create solutions with customers that the customers can eventually own and run themselves, going deep into each client's domain and core processes. NCS also signed agreements with Changi Airport Group, the Institute of Mental Health and Life3 Biotech to scale AI projects.

For FDEs, this is another large IT services firm in Asia making the embedded-engineer model a core part of how it delivers AI, adding a sizeable new pipeline of FDE roles in Singapore alongside similar pushes by Indian and Japanese IT firms.