Singapore-based AI and digital transformation company Temus has invested in Thinking Machines Data Science, a Filipina-founded AI and data company headquartered in the Philippines, giving the local firm greater reach to help enterprises deploy AI across Southeast Asia (SEA).
The investment highlights growing confidence in Philippine-built AI expertise at a time when businesses across the region are shifting from AI experiments to full-scale deployment. Many organizations still struggle with fragmented data, aging IT systems, and a shortage of AI talent, making implementation more difficult than testing new tools.
Founded in Manila in 2015 by Stephanie Sy, Thinking Machines has spent the past decade building data platforms and deploying AI systems for organizations in financial services, retail, conglomerates, and the civic sector. The company has also trained more than 10,000 professionals in AI and has deployed hundreds of AI systems into production.
“We built Thinking Machines on the belief that the Philippines can build up and scale world-class AI capability,” said Stephanie Sy, founder and CEO, Thinking Machines Data Science; managing director, Applied AI & Data, Temus. “Joining the Temus group allows us to pursue that ambition at a much greater scale while staying true to our team, our clients, and our mission.”
Thinking Machines is OpenAI’s first official Services Partner in Asia Pacific and has since been awarded OpenAI Advanced Partner status. It operates offices in Manila, Singapore, and Bangkok.
Under the partnership, Thinking Machines will combine its AI implementation expertise with Temus’ enterprise transformation capabilities, cloud engineering, consulting, and delivery infrastructure. The companies said this will allow them to help more organizations move AI projects beyond pilot programs into day-to-day business operations.
For customers, the partnership brings together AI strategy, data engineering, governance, workflow integration, workforce training, and AI deployment under one provider. The companies said this is intended to help businesses build AI systems that can operate reliably in regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services, education, and government.
Temus, which has about 500 employees, was established by Temasek and supports Singapore’s Smart Nation and National AI Strategy initiatives while expanding its presence across Southeast Asia.
“Many enterprises are navigating the challenge of running AI systems that hold up under real operating conditions — constrained data, regulatory requirements, complex workflows,” said Sng Ren Yeong, CEO, Temus. “That requires a different level of engineering, governance, and integration. Thinking Machines brings deep capability in that layer of the problem. This investment connects two parts of the system that need to work as one: how AI is built, and how it is made to operate at scale.”