Second Talent Reports 52% Rise in APAC AI Hiring Demand in Updated Salary Index
Sep 24, 2026
The August 2026 index update provides regional hiring benchmarks as Co-founder & CEO Elton Chan examines the skills needed to move AI into production
Austin, Texas, September 24, 2026 -- Second Talent updated its Asia Tech Salary Index in August 2026, recording a 52% year-over-year increase in demand for AI roles across APAC. The index tracks engineering pay by role and seniority across eight Asian markets.
Across the markets tracked by the Asia Tech Salary Index, average time to hire was 16 days and the offer acceptance rate was 89%.
“The first conversation around AI talent was heavily focused on researchers and machine learning engineers. That’s no longer enough. Once companies start putting AI into real businesses, they need engineers who can integrate systems, work with existing infrastructure, handle security and reliability, and stay close to the customer,” said Elton Chan, Co-founder and CEO of Second Talent.
For Chan, the 52% rise in demand and the expansion of OpenAI and Anthropic across Asia point to the same shift: AI hiring is broadening beyond research toward applied AI, deployment and engineering roles that bring systems into production.
OpenAI has committed more than S$300 million to its Singapore initiative and plans to create more than 200 Singapore-based technical roles over the next few years, according to its Singapore announcement. Its Singapore hiring spans Forward-Deployed Engineers, Applied AI Engineers, Applied AI Architects, AI deployment engineering leaders and cybersecurity roles. These positions involve taking AI systems from prototypes into production and working directly with enterprise customers.
“Companies shouldn’t assume that hiring an AI engineer solves their AI problem. The technical capability has to match the stage you’re at. If you’re experimenting, you need people who can prototype quickly. If you’re deploying into production, you need people who understand architecture, evaluation, security and operations. If you’re scaling across markets, you also need people who can work with customers and local teams,” said Chan.
Anthropic's February 16, 2026 announcement identified India as its second-largest market for Claude.ai, with nearly half of Claude usage in the country concentrated in computer and mathematical tasks such as building applications, modernizing systems and shipping production software. Anthropic opened its Bengaluru office in February 2026 and is hiring local talent there. Its India team will provide applied AI expertise to help businesses design, build and scale Claude-powered solutions, according to the announcement.
AI hiring in India's IT sector rose 16% year over year in June 2026 while overall IT recruitment fell 3%, and AI and machine learning job listings across 14 sectors rose 25%, according to Naukri data reported by Reuters.
“We are going to see more engineers who aren’t building foundation models but are still doing highly technical AI work. They might be building agentic systems, integrating models into enterprise platforms, improving evaluation pipelines, working on inference, or adapting AI systems to a particular industry. Those are engineering problems, and companies need to hire for them accordingly,” said Chan.
The index benchmarks engineering pay against Silicon Valley and covers hiring velocity and skills demand alongside salaries.
“APAC isn’t one talent pool. Singapore gives you something different from Bangalore. Vietnam gives you something different from Manila. The right market depends on the role, the seniority you need and how much of the work is research, product engineering, deployment or customer-facing,” said Chan.
As companies across Asia build deeper AI teams, Chan expects demand for this kind of technical talent to spread beyond the companies leading in AI research and into the broader enterprise market.
“Start with the system you need to build and the outcome you need to deliver. Then work backwards into the skills. A lot of companies are still writing AI job descriptions around tools and model names. That can leave you with a long list of candidates who look current on paper but don’t have the experience to take the system into production,” said Chan.
About Second Talent
Founded in 2023, Second Talent connects companies with technical talent across Asia. The company provides sourcing, vetting, and support with contracts, payroll and compliance.
Contact Info:
Name: Elton Chan
Email: Send Email
Organization: Second Talent
Website: https://www.secondtalent.com
Release ID: 89204335
In case of detection of errors, concerns, or irregularities in the content provided in this press release, or if there is a need for a press release takedown, we strongly encourage you to reach out promptly by contacting [email protected] (it is important to note that this email is the authorized channel for such matters, sending multiple emails to multiple addresses does not necessarily help expedite your request). Our efficient team will be at your disposal for immediate assistance within 8 hours – resolving identified issues diligently or guiding you through the removal process. We take great pride in delivering reliable and precise information to our valued readers.
SEA startup funding jumps to US$7.25B, but most founders are still waiting
Southeast Asia’s startup funding market is showing signs of life again, but the recovery is not reaching most founders. Venture-backed companies in the region raised US$7.25 billion across 217 equity deals in the first half of 2026, according to the Southeast Asia Startup Funding Report H1 2026 by Kickstart Ventures and DealStreetAsia. That is the […] The post SEA startup funding jumps to US$7.25B, but most founders are still waiting appeared first on e27.
Microsoft’s new Surface Pro comes in at 12 inches with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Plus processor
This rollout follows a refresh of its larger siblings earlier in the year with the same processor.
Tencent rolls out payment app for foreign travellers ahead of Apec summit
Tencent Holdings on Thursday launched TenPayGo, a mobile payment app targeting foreign visitors, as the tech giant seeks to capture China’s growing inbound tourism market ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Shenzhen. Developed by Tencent’s WeChat Pay team, TenPayGo allowed international travellers to make payments at tens of millions of shops, restaurants and attractions across the WeChat Pay network by linking their credit cards or their home-country digital wallets...
Why now is the time for a new iPad mini
Word on the street is that we will see a new iPad mini before the end of the year.
Life Lab Resources grabs US$1M to turn food waste into aquaculture feed
Singapore’s food waste problem is often framed as a consumer habit or a logistics issue. For Life Lab Resources, it is also a feedstock problem, and one that could help ease another pressure point in Southeast Asia: rising demand for more sustainable aquaculture feed. The Singapore-based startup has raised US$1 million in fresh funding to […] The post Life Lab Resources grabs US$1M to turn food waste into aquaculture feed appeared first on e27.
Bitcoin’s corrective pullback or the start of a deeper drop toward US$79,600?
The digital asset market has fallen by 2.57 per cent to US$2.86T over the past 24 hours. Bitcoin, the largest token by market value, dropped 2.81 per cent to US$84,261.32 during the same period. The total crypto market cap declined 2.92 per cent, and Bitcoin’s move closely tracked that broader drop. The data shows a […] The post Bitcoin’s corrective pullback or the start of a deeper drop toward US$79,600? appeared first on e27.
Can Asia’s ETF infrastructure keep pace with its growth?
Asia’s ETF market has never been more dynamic. Assets are growing, new issuers are entering the market, investors are more engaged and product innovation is accelerating. For many years, the region’s ETF industry was defined by its potential. Today, that potential is becoming reality, with Asia emerging as the world’s fastest-growing ETF market. Yet growth […] The post Can Asia’s ETF infrastructure keep pace with its growth? appeared first on e27.
TaniHub, prison and grace: Cynthia Wihardja’s post gives a human face to VC risk
Cynthia Wihardja’s LinkedIn post begins not with a legal argument, but with a distinction: “There are two ways to lose your freedom. One is done to you. The other, you do to yourself.” The first, she says, is what has happened to her brother, Donald Wihardja, the former head of MDI Ventures, who has begun […] The post TaniHub, prison and grace: Cynthia Wihardja’s post gives a human face to VC risk appeared first on e27.
Why scaling across Southeast Asia means pricing in the cable you never see
In the last week of August, Viettel’s network engineers were doing something most of their customers never saw. They were moving traffic in real time, pushing 800 gigabits per second onto one undersea cable, another 300 onto a second, then routing whatever was left over a terrestrial fibre line that runs through Laos into Singapore. […] The post Why scaling across Southeast Asia means pricing in the cable you never see appeared first on e27.
What building Bangladesh’s agency actually looks like from the inside – Part 1
There’s a specific kind of meeting I used to dread in the early years of building Ngital. You’ve prepared everything. You’ve built the presentation carefully. You’ve researched the client’s industry. You walk in, and within the first 10 minutes, you realise the person across the table has already decided what they want, and what they […] The post What building Bangladesh’s agency actually looks like from the inside – Part 1 appeared first on e27.
Asian investors aren’t choosing between crypto and TradFi anymore
Gold has been a store of wealth across Asia for generations, yet access through traditional financial markets still carries familiar friction. Investors often need dedicated brokerage accounts, fixed trading windows and capital separated from money held elsewhere. What is changing is not what Asian investors want to own. It is how they access it. A […] The post Asian investors aren’t choosing between crypto and TradFi anymore appeared first on e27.
Startups keep scaling ops before they scale data — Here’s why it backfires
A startup doubles its headcount. It opens a new sales channel. It ships a second product line. All of this happens while the business is still running on a spreadsheet, a half-built dashboard, or a weekly gut-check meeting. Nobody notices the gap at first, growth feels like growth. Then, three months in, someone on the […] The post Startups keep scaling ops before they scale data — Here’s why it backfires appeared first on e27.
YOUR NEWS, OUR NETWORK.
Do you have Great News you want to tell the world?
Be it updates about your business or your community, you can make sure that it’s heard by submitting your story to our network reaching hundreds of news sites across 6 verticals.