HSBC: Scaling AI with Singapore Centre of Excellence Launch

HSBC has announced plans to launch a Global AI Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Singapore in the second half of this year.

The news reinforces HSBC’s ambition to embed AI into the core of its international banking model.

The CoE is designed to be a scalable innovation hub, developing AI capabilities that can be deployed across HSBC’s global network and aligns with the bank’s broader push to digitise customer engagement, streamline operations and strengthen decision-making through advanced analytics.

Georges Elhedery, Group CEO of HSBC, says: “The new AI Centre of Excellence in Singapore will help drive our global AI vision – to empower our colleagues to use AI to create a personalised experience for each customer, deliver it safely, in real time and at scale, while keeping human judgement, decision-making and accountability at the core.”

Targeting payments, wealth and treasury

The Singapore-based CoE will initially focus on three high-impact areas:

These three areas reflect HSBC’s strategic priorities in high-growth, data-intensive segments where AI can materially improve customer outcomes and operational efficiency. 

In payments particularly, AI is expected to support fraud detection, real-time processing and intelligent routing – areas of growing importance as global transaction volumes accelerate.

HSBC and talent, governance and ecosystem partnerships

To support the initiative, HSBC plans to recruit more than 100 AI specialists, spanning natural language processing, data science, AI governance and human-centred design. 

These hires will work alongside David Rice, HSBC’s Chief AI Officer, as well as teams across wealth management and global payments solutions.

The bank is also investing in Singapore’s innovation ecosystem, collaborating with academic institutions and government bodies to build a sustainable AI talent pipeline – a dual focus of advancing technical capability while ensuring responsible deployment.

HSBC has emphasised that all AI development within the CoE will maintain strong governance frameworks and human oversight.

This, the bank stresses, is an increasingly critical requirement as financial institutions navigate regulatory scrutiny and ethical considerations around AI.

Scaling AI across the enterprise

The CoE is part of HSBC’s wider AI transformation strategy, which centres on integrating intelligence across its operations and customer touchpoints.

“We see AI as an opportunity to be a simple, more responsive and more connected bank for our customers and colleagues,” HSBC says.

“We’re investing in the technology and platforms that strengthen how we serve customers and we’re giving our colleagues the tools and training to adapt, succeed and benefit from the opportunities AI brings.”

It also says that partnerships with leading technology firms are expected to play a role in accelerating IA deployment, particularly in areas such as machine learning infrastructure, data platforms and Gen AI applications.