Databricks has opened a new regional headquarters in Singapore, quadrupling the size of its local office as the data and AI software company deepens its bet on Asia. The 32,000-square-foot site at IOI Central Boulevard Towers opened on November 4, replacing an office a quarter of its size and anchoring the company's operations across Asia Pacific and Japan.
The opening is part of a plan, announced in September, to invest more than $350 million in Singapore over three years. Databricks says its local workforce will grow from around 250 people to more than 500, including over 200 forward-deployed engineers who work directly inside customer organisations.
A bet on Asia's enterprise AI shift
Databricks links the expansion to a shift in how companies use artificial intelligence: from experiments to production systems that run on governed company data. Demand is rising for its Lakebase database, built for AI agents; its Genie assistant, which turns business data into answers; and its Unity Gateway, which controls costs and access across multiple AI models.
New Singapore customers named by the company include financial group iFAST, Singapore Customs and telecom operator Singtel, joining existing users such as Standard Chartered, the Central Provident Fund Board, GovTech Singapore and Toyota. Databricks is also working with Singapore's Economic Development Board and the Infocomm Media Development Authority in support of the country's national AI agenda.
Alongside the office, Databricks has launched an AI accelerator intended to support more than 100 early-stage companies over three years, and highlighted a student challenge that drew more than 200 project ideas. The company has also said it plans to train 20,000 people in AI and data skills as part of the Singapore commitment.
Growth, valuation and the agent economy
The expansion comes as Databricks reports an annualised revenue run rate above $7 billion, growing more than 80 percent year on year. The San Francisco-based company, founded in 2013 around the Apache Spark engine built at UC Berkeley, raised $5 billion in August at a $190 billion valuation, led by Coatue with Blackstone, MGX, T. Rowe Price and Sixth Street Growth.
Within that total, its Lakehouse data warehousing business runs above $1.5 billion a year and is growing more than 100 percent, while Lakebase has passed a $100 million run rate within about a year of launch. More than 1,000 customers now spend over $1 million a year with the company, and more than 100 spend over $10 million.
The agent wave is central to the story. An October essay from investor Andreessen Horowitz noted that AI agents now send more queries than people across Databricks' platform and launch more than 17 million databases a day. Chief executive Ali Ghodsi has said enterprises want agents that work across their business, remember context and deliver accurate answers, without blowing through their budgets.
What the Singapore hub signals
Singapore is the latest stop in a global expansion drive that included an $850 million investment announced in Britain in March. For Singapore, landing a fast-growing American AI infrastructure company as a regional hub reinforces its pitch as the place where global technology firms serve Southeast Asia.
The test now is conversion: turning a bigger office, a larger local team and a startup accelerator into production deployments across the region's banks, governments and manufacturers. On the evidence of the revenue numbers, Databricks arrives in its new headquarters with momentum. Whether the agent boom keeps paying for itself at the same pace is the question its customers, and its rivals, will be watching.
