Sea Limited Opens AI Center in Singapore, Plans 100 New R&D Roles
Sea Limited, a Singapore-based technology firm, announced Monday it is establishing an Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence (AI CoE) in the country with backing from Digital Industry Singapore, a joint office of three government agencies.
The center will focus on developing Sea's proprietary AI capabilities, including foundation models and production-ready solutions for the company's e-commerce platform Shopee and other services.
What the Center Will Do
The AI CoE will organize its work around four areas: foundational AI model development, scalable deployment of AI systems, building AI-native talent, and experimenting with new operating models enabled by AI technology.
Sea plans to translate research advances into production systems that improve user experience and measurable business outcomes. The company will also deepen its stable of in-house AI models, including Compass Max v3.5, a 245 billion parameter large language model designed for Southeast Asian languages and e-commerce.
Compass Max v3.5 is already powering AI features on Shopee's platform. The company said the model operates with greater responsiveness and at a fraction of the cost of other commercially available large language models.
Hiring and Timeline
Over three years, the AI CoE is expected to create at least 100 R&D and innovation-focused roles in Singapore. These positions will span AI research, engineering, and product development.
The initiative aligns with Singapore's National AI Strategy 2.0 and the government's 2026 budget priorities. Philbert Gomez, head of Digital Industry Singapore, said the center will "create new innovation roles in areas such as AI engineering and product development, providing Singaporeans an opportunity to create AI products with a global reach."
Why This Matters for Product Teams
For product development professionals, this signals how major technology companies are structuring AI work. Sea's approach-building proprietary foundation models, deploying them at scale, and creating new operating models around AI-reflects a shift toward making AI a core capability rather than a bolt-on feature.
If you're building products that use AI, understanding how companies like Sea develop and deploy custom foundation models offers practical insights into production-ready AI systems.
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