Linde to invest S$30m in Singapore digital technologies hub

GERMAN gas and engineering company Linde Group has launched a S$30 million initiative to develop digital technologies for its plants across the region.

The company's Asia Pacific Digitalisation Hub, as it is called, will be its first such centre outside of Germany.

The hub - located in Linde's Asia-Pacific headquarters in Mapletree Business City - is aimed at helping Linde digitally transform its industrial processes while improving safety and process efficiency.

For instance, there are plans to digitally transform Linde's plant on Jurong Island into a "plant of the future" using Big Data analytics and machine learning algorithms.

The company already has remote operations centres in Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur which use artificial intelligence and Big Data to remotely operate more than 200 plants across 14 countries.

"Digital technologies give us a rapid, low-cost way to test and fast-track new ideas," said Linde's head of digitalisation Philipp Karmires.

"Our game plan is to work on project ideas for three months and then quickly transition them to our business portfolio if they prove successful. We simply drop anything that does not work within this timeframe."

Linde chief executive officer Aldo Belloni said that the Asia Pacific Digitalisation Hub builds on the company's successful Digital Accelerator at its Munich headquarters.

Beh Swan Gin, chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board, said that Singapore's vibrant tech community and capabilities in data analytics and Industry 4.0 make it an ideal location for companies such as Linde to develop advanced digital solutions.