Rendering of the upgraded Ang Mo Kio campus (Image: Apple)
As Singapore grows in prominence as a financial centre, Southeast Asia’s wealthiest nation continues to serve as the top tech hub in the region, with iPhone maker Apple announcing on Wednesday that it will upgrade and expand a set of facilities opposite its first location in the city-state.
The tech giant announced Wednesday that it plans to spend $250 million updating and enlarging a two-building industrial asset at 12 Ang Mo Kio Street 64 in central Singapore, with the company also planning to connect that campus to its original facility across the street, to make space for its growing team and new hires in artificial intelligence.
With Apple boss Tim Cook meeting with both outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and incoming leader, Lawrence Wong, in Singapore this week, the company issued a statement pointing to its history in the country.
“Singapore is truly a one-of-a-kind place, and we are proud of the connection we’ve built with this dynamic community of creators, learners, and dreamers,” Cook said. “With our growing campus, Apple is writing a new chapter in our history here. Our Singapore teams have played an important role in enriching the lives of our customers — and we can’t wait for many more decades of innovation to come.”
Growing Team
With its workforce in Singapore numbering 3,600 and growing, the city-state serves as the firm’s APAC operations base for roles in software, hardware, services and support.
Apple’s Tim Cook
The firm said the enlarged campus will create make space for new roles in AI and other key functions, with Apple expanding in Southeast Asia as it diversifies its supply chains away from China.
Apple’s revamp of its Ang Mo Kio hub comes after it acquired 12 Ang Mo Kio Street 64 from United Engineers, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shanghai-based Yanlord Land Group, in April 2022 for S$55 million (then $40.3 million).
The current pair of buildings measures 36,076 square metres (388,320 square foot) in gross floor area and occupy a 24,076 square metre plot. With a gross plot ratio of 2.5, Apple has the opportunity to nearly double the floor area developed on the site to 60,190 square metres, based on data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority.
The site is zoned for Business 1 or light industrial use, which allows for construction and operation of non-polluting factories, warehouses, telecommunication or utility buildings, with construction at the Ang Mo Kio facility is set to commence later this year.
Apple aims to wholly power the enlarged facility on renewable energy and is also targeting Gold certification for the facility under the US Green Building Council’s LEED regimen for sustainable structures.
“The new expansion is the latest milestone in Apple’s over four decades of work fostering job creation and deep connections with the local community,” the firm said.
Where the tech company once was creating computers giving users the option to deploy from four to 64 kb of RAM in a machine operating on 5.25 inch floppy disks, Apple in February was recruiting Vietnamese-speaking AI engineers to join its team in Singapore and help teach Siri understand and speak new languages.
Southeast Asia Tech Centre
In addition to the Ang Mo Kio campus, Apple also has offices in the Innovis tower in the Fusionopolis Two development in One North, and said its corporate and retail presence in the city-state supports more than 60,000 jobs including those hired directly and those working across its supply chains.
Alibaba’s Ant Group, which owns the company’s digital payment platform Alipay, in September of last year opened its new international headquarters in a 44,000 square foot space at Guocoland’s Guoco Midtown office tower on Beach Road.
E-commerce titan Amazon is among the tech titans leasing space in the upcoming IOI Central Boulevard Towers, having committed to 34,280 square metres of work space in the Marina Bay development, which is set to open this year.
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