American cloud-based software company Salesforce has announced plans to invest US$1 billion in Singapore over the next five years.
The investment will focus on expanding the adoption of Agentforce, supporting workforce development, and strengthening customer success.
Agentforce, Salesforce’s digital labor platform, is designed to help businesses deploy AI-driven agents that can operate 24/7.
With Singapore facing a slowing labor force growth due to an aging population and declining birth rates, Salesforce sees Agentforce as a way to help businesses scale while addressing labor shortages.
The investment aligns with Singapore’s National AI Strategy 2.0 and is expected to support industries, startups, and the public sector in integrating digital labour solutions.
Salesforce has been operating in Singapore for nearly two decades and established its first overseas AI Research hub in the city-state in 2019.
Since then, the hub has contributed to foundational AI models, including multimodal language-vision models and time-series models, and played a role in developing Salesforce’s AIOps Agents and in-house code optimisation tools.
The research team has produced over 100 research papers and patents, reinforcing Singapore’s position as a key AI hub for Salesforce.
The company is also expanding its services on Hyperforce in Singapore to provide local data residency for Data Cloud, Agentforce, and Unified Marketing Applications by next month.
This move is particularly relevant for businesses in regulated sectors like financial services, telecommunications, and government, where compliance with data privacy laws is a priority.
Several companies in Singapore, including Grab, M1, FairPrice Group, Ocean Network Express, and PRISM+, already use Salesforce AI technologies to enhance efficiency and improve customer experiences.
The demand for digital labor is growing, with the global digital labor market valued at US$$6 trillion.
Salesforce’s latest investment aims to help more businesses tap into this opportunity.
Jermaine Loy, Managing Director of the Singapore Economic Development Board said,
“Singapore welcomes Salesforce’s investment, which will boost our ongoing efforts to build a vibrant hub for AI innovation and adoption across our economy.
Salesforce’s initiatives in AI research and workforce development will strengthen our ecosystem by catalysing innovation for key industries and corporates based in Singapore.”
Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO, Salesforce, said,
“We are in an incredible new era of digital labor where every business will be transformed by autonomous agents that augment the work of humans, revolutionising productivity and enabling every company to scale without limits.
Singapore is at the forefront of this shift, and as the world’s largest provider of digital labor through our Agentforce platform, Salesforce is thrilled to expand our work with the business community and our longtime partners in the region to drive innovation, productivity and growth.”
Featured image credit: Edited from Freepik
