AvePoint CEO Warns Firms to Fix Data Before Rushing Into AI

Singapore-based enterprise data giant AvePoint is on a mission to become the "Palantir of Asia," but CEO Dr. Tianyi Jiang has a blunt warning for companies rushing into AI: without clean, governed data, the technology is useless. In an interview with The Straits Times, Jiang said up to 90% of enterprise data is scattered across emails, documents, chat messages, and platforms in incompatible formats — meaning most organisations deploying AI today are feeding their models garbage.

AvePoint, which has been headquartered in Singapore since 2022 after opening its first office here in 2009, operates in 80 countries and manages roughly one zettabyte of data for governments and banks worldwide. The company is best known in Singapore for co-developing Cosmic, the Monetary Authority of Singapore's centralised digital platform that uses machine learning and AI to help the six major banks detect money laundering and terrorism financing patterns. It also partnered with NTUC LearningHub under the government's $150 million Enterprise Compute Initiative to roll out AI upskilling courses for companies — a model it now plans to export to Japan.

Jiang, who identifies as a "techno-optimist," argues that every major technology shift — electricity, computing, the internet — expanded the economic pie rather than shrinking it, and AI is no different. He points to the democratising effect of AI tools, noting that a hawker can now use AI to design a mobile app for orders, something previously too costly for a small business. At the same time, he believes the value of genuine human interaction will rise in a world saturated with automated services.

AvePoint's financial performance backs up the confidence. The company reported US$419.5 million in revenue for FY2025, up 27% year-on-year, with gross profit of US$310.7 million. It became the first company to dual list on both Nasdaq and the Singapore Exchange when its SGX debut took place in September 2025. Jiang said AvePoint would perform strongly even in a hypothetical decoupling from the US market, citing the trust it has built with governments across multiple jurisdictions as a durable competitive moat.

Why it matters for Singapore: AvePoint's journey from a US-founded startup to a Singapore-headquartered enterprise with global reach is a model for the kind of deep-tech anchor firm Singapore wants to cultivate. Its Cosmic platform shows how local regulatory sandboxes can produce globally exportable products, and its data governance-first message is timely for Singapore's business community: with the government pushing AI adoption hard, the AvePoint CEO's warning that data readiness is the real bottleneck — not access to models — is a dose of practical reality that too few companies are hearing. If AvePoint succeeds in its "Palantir of Asia" ambition from a Singapore base, it would be a major validation of the city-state's bet on AI governance as a competitive advantage.