Cognition's Asia expansion sees Singapore as APAC HQ

- Cognition, the dedicated AI coding agent company has announced its expansion into Singapore

- Singapore will be its Asia-Pacific hub and a central base for its regional leadership, operations, and growth

- Cognition’s Asia-Pacific operations will be led from Singapore by Richard Spence, VP and GM, APAC

- Cognition has raised over US$400 M at a US$10.2B valuation

Cognition, the dedicated AI coding agent company, has made Singapore its Asia-Pacific hub and a central base for its regional leadership, operations, and growth. 

Following its expansion into Japan earlier in April, Cognition’s move into Singapore comes as enterprises across Asia accelerate efforts to transform how software is built and deployed using AI. Singapore will serve as the company’s regional headquarters for the Asia Pacific region (APAC), with its leadership team based in-market and responsible for driving growth across Southeast Asia, as well as key markets including Australia, India, and South Korea. 

Singapore-based Spence is responsible for driving the company’s regional strategy, customer engagement, and market expansion.

Source: Cognition. Spence, here speaking at the Singapore launch event, helms Cognition's APAC business.

“Singapore stands out as one of the most advanced markets globally for AI adoption, with strong national leadership and a highly engaged developer and user base,” said Spence. 

“Local initiatives such as the National AI Council and the widespread use of AI tools reflect how quickly AI is being embraced. By establishing our APAC hub here, we are able to work closely with our customers across the region as they navigate a fundamental shift in how software is built and operated.” 

Cognition’s office in Singapore will open later this year in the Central Business District. The company plans to build a focused team in Singapore over the next two years across key roles in engineering, operations, product, sales, and marketing, supporting customers across the APAC region. 

The team will support go-to-market programmes, forward deployed engineering, core research and development, and legal functions, reflecting its commitment to serving enterprise customers locally.

Cognition’s entry into Singapore follows the acquisition of Havana, a Singapore startup building AI agents, as part of its strategy to build local engineering and go-to-market capabilities in the region. Havana’s team will be integrated into Cognition’s regional operations across engineering, go-to-market, and product development.  

Cognition is behind Devin, the first AI software engineer, designed to work alongside human developers to autonomously complete complex engineering tasks. In enterprise environments, Cognition’s platform enables organisations to accelerate development timelines, improve code quality, and automate routine workflows while maintaining strong controls around compliance, security, and human oversight.

Cognition is already working with leading enterprises in Singapore, including OCBC, where engineers use its platform to support software development workflows.

“OCBC is proudly Singapore’s longest-established bank and with this strategic partnership with Cognition, further reinforces our position as the most forward-looking and a thought leader in responsible, enterprise-grade AI adoption. 

"While our investment in Cognition’s platform began within engineering, it has quickly delivered meaningful benefits across multiple parts of our organisation, including our business teams. We’ve seen initial productivity gains of up to 30%, but even more importantly, this collaboration empowers us to deliver superior products to our customers,” said Michael Chung, Head of Group Wealth Engineering at OCBC. 

“Given our progress so far and the competitive advantage we’ve achieved, we are confident that leveraging Devin and Windsurf will enable us to accelerate transformation at scale and continue creating lasting value for both our shareholders and customers.”