Speech by Minister Lim Hng Kiang at the Opening of Seagate Singapore Design Centre (The Shugart) at One-North

Your Excellency, Mr Kirk Wagar, US Ambassador to Singapore

Mr Steve Luczo, Chairman and CEO of Seagate Technology,

Mrs Rita Shugart,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Introduction

            I am pleased to join you today to celebrate the opening of Seagate’s new R&D building, “The Shugart”.  This is an exciting addition to the vibrant one-north area.

2          Named after Seagate’s founder, Mr Alan Shugart, this S$100 million state-of-the-art R&D building is a testament to both Mr Shugart and Seagate’s tireless drive for excellence and continuous innovation. Housing over 500 research scientists and engineers, “The Shugart” is Seagate’s leading site for developing the high capacity, thin and light storage devices so essential for today’s digital world.

Singapore and Seagate have enjoyed a long-standing partnership

3          Singapore and Seagate have enjoyed a long-standing and productive partnership. In 1982, Seagate was the first investor to set up a disk drive component sub-assembly plant here, kick-starting the growth of our data storage industry. Since then, Seagate has been a cornerstone of data storage in Singapore. It invested in a hard disk assembly plant in 1983, and set up its first hard disk recording media manufacturing plant in 1996. Seagate subsequently expanded media manufacturing capacity through the establishment of two more plants, and Singapore remains its first and only media manufacturing location outside of the US.

4          In addition to its manufacturing activities, Seagate has also grown its R&D capabilities in Singapore over the years. Seagate’s R&D team here has grown from just 7 persons in 1984, to over 500 R&D engineers and scientists today. The ingenuity and skill of the Singapore team has been demonstrated through their success in developing award-winning products. In 1999, the team designed and launched the hugely popular 3.5-inch U-series drives. In 2004, the Singapore team designed, developed, and launched the world’s first 1-inch hard disk drive for hand-held products, which was named the “Best of Innovations” at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show. More recently, in 2013, the Singapore team developed the world’s thinnest 5mm 500GB hard disk drive. These achievements attest to Seagate’s leadership in innovation over the years, and the impressive capabilities of the Singapore team.

5         Today, Seagate is one of the largest electronics company in Singapore, employing 7,000 employees in R&D, hard disk media manufacturing and headquarter activities. Seagate has provided many Singaporeans with meaningful and rewarding careers, as well as valuable opportunities to enhance their skills and readiness for more complex jobs. Many of these employees have stayed with the company, risen through the ranks and are today part of the strong local core in the Singapore operations. Seagate’s emphasis on nurturing the next generation of local industry talent and leadership is also reflected in its S$300,000 donation to NTU’s and NUS’s bursary programs.

Singapore’s position in the Data Storage Industry has evolved and remains strong

6          Seagate’s history in Singapore mirrors the development of the Data Storage industry in Singapore.  In the 1980s, Singapore grew into a global hub for hard disk drives, and remained a strong leader in this field even after the 1990s shift from assembling consumer drives to higher value enterprise drives. At its peak, over half of the world’s hard disk drive units were made in Singapore.

7          As Singapore’s cost structure changed and regional competition intensified, many key players shifted their operations in Singapore towards capital- and knowledge-intensive activities.  These included hard disk media manufacturing, hard disk drive design and recording media R&D. Today, Singapore continues to play a key role in the Data Storage industry, with close to 50% of the world’s manufacturing capacity for hard disk media.

The Government remains committed to support the growth of the Data Storage and broader Electronics Industry in Singapore

8          Even as companies manufacture to serve today’s needs, the fast pace of technological change means that the data storage industry must also continually plan for the needs of tomorrow.  The pervasive use of social media and the growth in the Internet of Things, beyond consumer applications to industrial applications such as urban mobility, will continue to transform the industry landscape in several ways.

9          First, storage capacities need to grow at a faster pace as the world creates data at an ever-faster pace.

10        Second, new storage technologies and architectures will become even more crucial in order to achieve more effective management and retrieval of desired information from increasingly vast amounts of data in a timely and cost-effective fashion.

11        These trends will drive continued growth and innovation. The Government remains committed to work with key partners like Seagate to ensure that Singapore continues to be a lead location to design and manufacture the critical components and drives to support the needs of this digital world.

12        Beyond the Data Storage industry, the Electronics cluster is a strong pillar of our economy. In 2014, Electronics manufacturing accounted for about 5% of Singapore’s GDP, and is one of the largest contributors to business expenditure for R&D. It also has the second highest labour productivity among manufacturing industries.

13        Recent capacity and R&D expansions by companies affirm Singapore’s continued competitiveness and strength in the Electronics industry. The Government will continue to partner the Industry to enhance its competitiveness by growing and deepening capabilities in manufacturing and R&D. For example, we will support companies to invest in new and efficient automation and robotics technologies to achieve best-in-class manufacturing quality. We will also continue to support companies to augment their manufacturing activities with process R&D, to enable Singapore to win in profitable niche areas, such as specialty Integrated Circuits and hard disk media. Finally, we will continue to invest in public R&D in electronics to develop critical capabilities that pre-position Singapore to seize opportunities offered by new or disruptive technologies.

Conclusion

14        In closing, let me congratulate the Seagate team once again on the opening of “The Shugart”. I hope that the Singapore team will continue to draw inspiration from Mr Shugart’s visionary spirit and drive for excellence, to bring Seagate to new heights of achievement in the data storage industry. And I look forward to hearing about the exciting products and innovations that you will create in the years to come.