How global leaders like Bosch and Coca-Cola are building their innovative edge from Singapore

In 2023, Bosch celebrated its 100th anniversary in Singapore. The centenary underscored a relationship built on innovation and shared growth.

Though the city-state accounts for only a small fraction of Bosch’s global turnover, it has emerged as an R&D “lighthouse” and is increasingly central to the company’s long-term innovation strategy.

“In July 2021, we established our innovation hub in Singapore to work closely with our in-house corporate research teams and tap into the exceptional talent emerging from local universities. Through this hub, we also collaborate with a broad ecosystem of external partners, including startups, multinational corporations, and venture builders, to accelerate innovation,” says Axel Deniz, chief executive of Bosch Business Innovations.

The group’s venture builder, Bosch Business Innovations, uses Bosch’s intellectual property (IP), R&D, and market access as the bases to explore new opportunities and businesses. “We have so much underutilised IP that we can cross-pollinate into other sectors,” says Mr Deniz. AquaEasy was the first spin-off corporate venture from Bosch’s Singapore innovation hub and focused on aquaculture technology. It used Bosch’s sensor and analytics IP to help farmers across South-East Asia monitor water conditions and improve yields.

“Singapore offers a geopolitically neutral launchpad that allows us to expand into ASEAN and markets such as Korea. The ease of multilateral cooperation we have here allows us to easily bring IP in and out of the country.”

The German manufacturer is not alone in recognising its appeal. For multinational companies (MNCs) looking to expand their research operations in Asia and adapt to changing trends and technologies, Singapore has become a favoured destination for developing and testing new ideas.
 

The Singapore difference

From Siemens  to Hyundai,  multinationals have established innovation centres and R&D hubs in Singapore to turn high-end research into scalable applications with real impact.

For Iain McLaughlin, Coca-Cola’s president of global commercial product supply, the company’s Singapore concentrate manufacturing plant serves as a proving ground for data, automation and AI in its operations. The plant’s success in raising productivity and cutting emissions has been recognised by the World Economic Forum, which named it a Global Lighthouse Factory. “Singapore allows us to pilot new production, planning and quality processes in a highly controlled yet globally connected environment,” says Mr McLaughlin.

What sets Singapore apart from other regional hubs looking to attract MNC investment is not innovation itself, but the conditions that help large firms move from experimentation to execution.

“One of the most important aspects of building new ventures is matching the speed of the market,” says Mr Deniz. “If you’re a large company, you’re usually moving too slowly, putting you at a disadvantage to non-corporates and startups.”

Bosch learned this in its early years of establishing its innovation hub in Singapore, when it tried to build new ventures in-house. “We built around 15 projects and maybe five moved to the pilot stage, but none of those exist anymore,” says Mr Deniz. “What we learned from that experience was the importance of validating ideas quickly — and of building the right structure around them: one that is agile, capital-efficient, founder-led, and free from corporate bureaucracy and politics, so the venture is ultimately investable in the market.”

Singapore’s dense ecosystem reduces those disadvantages. Customers, entrepreneurs and investors are in close proximity, so companies get rapid, real-time feedback.

“We’re able to have quick meetings, quick feedback, quick access to all stakeholders,” explains Mr Deniz. “Those early conversations mean we’re not relying on wishful thinking.”
 

A strong commitment

Much of this momentum is driven by sizeable public-sector investment. Over the next five years, Singapore has committed about US$29bn—about 1% of its annual GDP—to research and development under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2030 plan.  Additional funding has also been allocated to high-priority sectors, such as advanced manufacturing, sustainability, the digital economy and deep-technology ventures. 

These commitments signal the kind of long-term predictability that companies prize. This is particularly important in industries where development cycles are long and capital requirements are high, such as deep tech and AI-driven technologies.

Regulation plays a similar role in encouraging innovation, while mitigating risk. In Singapore, businesses can test new ideas in real-world market conditions within clearly defined parameters. For example, in financial services, the FinTech Regulatory Sandbox allows companies to trial new products under regulatory supervision, often shortening their path to market.

Singapore’s rigorous IP regulations give organisations confidence that their ideas will be protected. This is especially important for Bosch, says Mr Deniz, which boasts one of the world’s largest IP libraries. “We have more than 125,000 IP rights, so being in an environment where this strength can come into play is very beneficial for us.”

The city-state’s patent process is swift, which has helped Singapore’s IP regime rank as one of the best in the world.   While getting a patent approved could be a two-year process in other markets, it takes just six months in Singapore, Mr Deniz says.

Singapore’s large pool of more than 52,000 researchers, scientists and engineers underpins innovation.  This is complemented by sustained investment in STEM and AI to develop and attract the best technology talent. Over S$1 billion (around US$785 million) will be invested into AI research and training over the next five years. While Singapore’s budget for 2026 included funding for a National AI Council to co-ordinate strategy, governance and industry engagement, and dedicated business parks designed to cluster AI startups, researchers and skilled workers.

Scale and standards

For many multinationals, Singapore’s appeal lies not just in its research capabilities, but the ability to set replicable, transferable standards that enable collaborative models that focus on both experimentation and real-world deployment.

The partnership between Coca-Cola Singapore and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) illustrates this approach. Together with local SMEs like Kowa Skymech, which specialises in industrial automation, it launched a robotics-enabled assembly and packaging line, alongside advanced digital scheduling tools, that reduced planning cycles from several days to roughly an hour.

“Our collaboration with A*STAR was very deliberately focused on solving real, day-to-day manufacturing constraints rather than experimenting in isolation,” says Mr McLaughlin. “We were able to respond far more quickly to changes in demand while maintaining quality and consistency.”

The A*STAR partnership is emblematic of how impactful collaboration has been for Coca-Cola. By working alongside public agencies and local companies, Coca-Cola is able to tap into valuable engineering expertise and startup-like agility, as well as customised advanced technologies.

Moreover, its sophisticated logistics infrastructure means Singapore functions as a control centre for many firms’ Asia supply chains and regional distribution. This combination of innovation test bed and market reach was of central importance to Coca-Cola’s regional growth. 

The Singapore plant both manufactures the critical concentrate at the heart of Coca-Cola’s popular drinks and develops solutions which can be replicated across diverse markets, locations and business lines.   This includes its Dynamic Scheduling and SARA, a proprietary AI chatbot used internally to support shop-floor operations and learning.
 

Realising resilience through community

For multinationals in traditional industries, one of the clearest challenges is to continuously enable growth, while ensuring they remain adaptable enough to capture the opportunities that innovation presents and withstand shocks from rapidly changing trends and systems.

Singapore’s appeal lies in how consistently it addresses these challenges. By combining public investment, regulatory clarity, tech talent and access to capital, it offers large companies a place and a space to experiment, innovate and execute.

Betting on these factors helps embed resilience into Coca-Cola’s supply chains, says Mr McLaughlin. “Singapore functions as both a benchmark and incubator for capabilities that reinforce excellence locally while contributing to greater resilience across our global network.”

"Singapore is like a philharmonic orchestra with a federal budget,” says Mr Deniz. “Everybody knows how to play and it’s a big harmonious ecosystem working together to create something world-class."
 

Source: The Economist © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2026. Permission required for reproduction.