Thales will boost the manufacturing capabilities of its Singapore Cybersecurity & Digital Identity Manufacturing Competence Centre through increased automation.
The 21,000-square-meter Singapore facility produces over 200 million banking cards, 12 million identity cards, and nearly 10 million passport data pages annually. The site will integrate collaborative robots and autonomous mobile robots for transportation, loading, unloading, inspection and machine set-ups across production lines.
The automation drive will also shift workers toward higher-value roles as part of a workforce upskilling initiative, according to Thales’ press statement.
The move is part of the three Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) the French company signed with the Singapore Economic Development Board during the Singapore Airshow to strengthen its capabilities in AI, cloud, edge computing, data engineering and manufacturing in the city-state.
Under a separate agreement, Thales will establish Singapore as one of three global R&D centres for its FlytEDGE in-flight entertainment platform, alongside facilities in France and the United States. In the next three years, 40 experts will provide technical and engineering support for FlytEDGE in Singapore, as well as develop new end-to-end services that integrate cloud and edge computing, cyber-secured-by-design.
The third MoU focuses on regulatory technology, with Thales launching a managed service developed by its teams in Singapore and France. The AI-enabled solution creates secure cloud environments on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud platforms, helping companies in fintech maintain compliance with cybersecurity standards.
See also: Maybank tests Ringgit tokenised deposits for cross-border payment pilot
The service continuously monitors cloud infrastructure and collects digital evidence to keep firms audit-ready. Thales plans to extend the offering to other regulated sectors like the pharmaceutical and aerospace sectors in the coming months.
“These agreements illustrate Thales’ continued investment in Singapore, where we are deepening our expertise in technologies like AI, cyber, quantum and cloud, developing home-grown solutions, while transforming our industrial operations to meet customers’ expectations. The support and partnership from the EDB is pivotal, and I look forward to bringing the best of our capabilities to strengthen Singapore’s cyber and digital positioning and advance its manufacturing ambitions,” says Emily Tan, country director and chief executive of Thales in Singapore.
Zheng Jingxin, EDB’s vice president and head of Mobility, says: “We greatly value Thales’ partnership and commitment to develop a future-ready talent pool and drive transformative impact from Singapore. These investments will reinforce our position as a global innovation hub for frontier technologies, and exemplify how companies can tap on our trusted and comprehensive ecosystem to co-create new solutions in advanced manufacturing.”.
