MANILA – Multinational technology company Dyson said its soon-to-be-expanded research and manufacturing “campus” in the Philippines, which will be the size of 92 basketball courts, will be its largest software center.
“It will be Dyson’s largest software hub,” Edwin Adriaansen, Dyson’s global software director, told reporters in a recent interview at the company’s global headquarters in Singapore.
The multi-billion dollar British company, known for its bladeless fans, bagless vacuum cleaners and hair styling products, also operates in the UK and Malaysia.
Dyson — which currently has a software lab in Alabang and a manufacturing facility in Calamba, Laguna — will launch its P11-billion hybrid factory in Santo Tomas, Batangas in the third quarter of 2024 in an effort to consolidate all its Philippine offices under one. roof.
The aim is to hire an additional 400 engineers and more than 50 graduate engineers for the new hub. The firm previously said the investment would generate around 1,250 employees by mid-2024.
Adriaansen says they do not consider the Philippines a support unit for Dyson. They instead see the Batangas operation as key to the company’s development, adding that the country has “very talented people.”
“We can work with universities, we can set the tone, we can set the goals, we can set the future of the software of the Philippines,” he said.
Many things had been considered before Dyson chose the Philippines as its location for the billion-peso investment. There are other equally viable places for it to put its money. But for Adriaansen, the Philippines “has the best qualities to succeed.”
“We believe that the way you work on campus, you have to combine plant and staff with legal people with software engineers, hardware, design engineers,” he said.
He aims for the software facility to be the premier in the Philippines, adding that Dyson Philippines “will have dedicated products under development.”
The software executive also hopes that Dyson’s new location in the First Philippine Industrial Park in Santo Tomas will attract other companies to the area, which he calls the “Silicon Valley of the Philippines.”
Asked what Filipinos bring to the table, Dyson chief technology officer John Churchill said: “What we see in the Philippines for me is the ability to learn… the huge amount of good communication.”
“We are a global company. We want people who can communicate and also people who have the passion to bring the energy to the team to work as a team,” Churchill added.
He said it was the first time Dyson had sought to create an office and manufacturing facility in one location.
“It’s magical to me when we bring production and design together because the world of theory intersects with the world of reality,” he said.
Building the Batangas facility could be a risky venture for Dyson, especially with the huge investment it would pay to complete the mega-hub from scratch amid the global economic situation and tech layoffs.
But Adriaansen, the software director, explained that the “DNA” of family-owned Dyson is that they “can do a lot of things” and they “don’t give up early.”
“The opportunity is go, go, go for it. Same with our products, 75 percent of our products never make it to market — you’ll never see it. Same with campus, there’s no reason it shouldn’t work. “