OpenAI in Talks to Lease 100,000 Sq Ft at Shaw Tower as Singapore Becomes Its Regional AI Base

OpenAI has spent the past year signalling that Singapore matters to it beyond a regional sales office — an Applied AI Lab, a government MOU, a growing team. The company now appears ready to back that up with one of the biggest physical commitments yet: Business Times reports that ChatGPT's creator is in talks to lease roughly 100,000 square feet across five floors of the new Shaw Tower along Beach Road.

The space would give OpenAI a serious presence in the Ophir-Rochor corridor, one of Singapore's fastest-rejuvenating office precincts. Shaw Tower, a 32-storey development with 435,000 sq ft of office space, received its Temporary Occupation Permit only in mid-June, so the building is essentially brand new. The report also notes that rival Anthropic has leased about 100 desks within The Executive Centre at Ocean Financial Centre — evidence that both frontier labs are now quietly building physical bases in the same small city.

This is the pattern Singapore has been courting. OpenAI's Applied AI Lab, announced earlier this year as its first outside the United States, was paired with a memorandum of understanding with the Singapore government witnessed by Minister Josephine Teo — covering applied AI innovation, talent building, and accessibility. A five-floor lease would suggest the lab's ambitions, and headcount, are scaling faster than a few serviced desks could contain.

For Singapore's commercial property market, the deal matters too. Grade-A office demand has been driven lately by financial firms and data centre operators; a frontier AI lab taking 100,000 sq ft would be a new demand class, and a signal to other AI companies weighing regional hubs. For the ecosystem, it means more senior AI researchers and engineers actually living and working here — the kind of density that startups and universities feed off.

Why it matters for Singapore: Frontier AI companies don't lease five floors on a whim. OpenAI's reported move, alongside Anthropic's desks down the road, confirms Singapore has become the de facto Southeast Asian base for the companies building the most advanced models — and that the government's applied-AI push is converting policy into payroll. If the lease closes, expect more AI-linked headcount, more partnerships with local firms, and more pressure on Singapore to keep its talent pipeline and infrastructure ahead of demand.