GrabTaxi to start R&D centre in US, widen talent hunt

GrabTaxi said yesterday it will open an engineering centre in Seattle, Washington, to build a dedicated engineering team based in the United States - where rival ride-booking platform Uber is based.

The new centre will complement GrabTaxi's existing R&D centres in Singapore and Beijing, and develop solutions in areas such as cloud computing, storage, big data management, predictive analytics and machine learning capabilities.

Anthony Tan, co-founder and chief executive of GrabTaxi, said the engineering centre in Seattle "will help attract top talent in the US and expand our global talent reach".

"As we continue to build an on-demand ecosystem in South-east Asia, it is important to look all over the world for innovative ideas and people that will help us continue to succeed in that mission."

Raman Narayanan, whom GrabTaxi said is a former Microsoft "distinguished engineer", has joined the company to serve as technical advisor and lead the company's recruitment efforts in the US.

THE BUSINESS TIMES

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