The Digital Hub SEA serves as the starting point for a cloud-first platform that connects international units and enables a new way of working digitally. According to Dr. Jörg Aign, Managing Director of TÜV NORD International, Southeast Asia is serving as a pilot region for the development of a blueprint for global transformation, with a focus on productivity and safety through AI.
What’s the idea behind the Digital Hub SEA?
The Digital Hub SEA is the launchpad for our cloud-first platform, which will one day connect all our international units and create the basis for a new, digital way of working. You could say that we’re laying a secure foundation on which to build an entire digital house. We’re developing the platform in a protected environment with the aim of optimising it and then rolling it out globally. In this way, we’re creating the basis for AI-supported productivity, globally standardised processes and new digital services.
Why was Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, chosen as a pilot region?
Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most dynamic economic regions: More than 680 million people live here; the digital economy has surged to a gross merchandise value of more than 300 billion US dollars and growth rates of around 4.5 percent. We’ve selected Indonesia for the development and secure trialling of the new platform. Indonesia offers us ideal conditions to quickly gain experience and develop a resilient blueprint for global transformation. We aim to roll out the platform globally as soon as possible for the use of Microsoft’s Copilot. By relieving our employees of routine tasks and helping them with multi-layered evaluations and analyses, we will increase their personal productivity.
So the goal is to increase productivity, standardise and automate processes, and merge data?
That’s right, but it’s only the beginning. We’re talking about a multidimensional transformation. Alongside the increase in productivity I mentioned earlier, we’re automating complex business processes using power apps, Copilot Studio, and Foundry IQ. These tools are helping us develop digital solutions and optimise business processes. The idea is to quickly and reliably merge data from multiple storage locations for ease of use. We want to digitalise business processes quickly without having to bring in IT specialists. And we aim to develop new digital products. This isn’t just about efficiency; it’s also about realigning the way we work and developing new opportunities for the Group.
How will that work in concrete terms?
Summarising e-mails, drafting texts and analysing data are all tasks that Microsoft Copilot can perform well. At a later date we aim to use AI-supported software, or agents, to automatically develop specific tasks. These agents will then support us in complex tasks. But always under human control. AI is a helping “hand” that will relieve of us of donkey work: Copilot can automatically create multilingual notes during a meeting and summarise the most important decisions live. This means that all the participants are immediately on the same page – without having to redo the notes or overcome language barriers. This is an example of what we’re testing in Southeast Asia, with the aim of making it available to everyone in the Group as soon as possible.
Can you trust AI, especially when it comes to solving complex tasks?
If anything, it’s in the area of complex tasks that AI is likely to come into its own in the future. The necessary trust will be built up through transparency and experience. We’re relying on the “human in the loop” principle here. AI, as I said, is just the helping hand. Modern data platforms like Microsoft Fabric IQ go way beyond simply collecting and storing information. They connect data from many sources, preparing them intelligently and rendering them usable for analytics, AI models and automation. The result is a true “intelligence platform” that transforms data into knowledge, forecasts and concrete recommendations. Foundry IQ then builds on this as a knowledge and context layer for AI agents, enabling the development, training and secure operation of AI solutions that can be integrated directly into business processes, such as predictive analytics, automated workflows or intelligent decision support in areas like finance, operations or strategy. This means that information is always up-to-date, secure and scalable. AI can recognise complex relationships and make concrete recommendations, but it will always be down to humans to evaluate them. All the processes are transparent at all times.
AI doesn’t necessarily run on individual laptops, but tends to be server-based, right?
That’s correct. We’ve adopted a hybrid IT architecture that combines cloud and on-premises infrastructure. The intelligence lies in the cloud, where we can guarantee scale, security and performance. Sensitive data and confidential work are specifically protected and, where necessary, processed in specially secured cloud environments or locally.
Do you intend to use the knowledge acquired in Southeast Asia in other regions too?
Learning, scaling and reusing are what the project is all about. What we’re developing in Southeast Asia will be the blueprint for all other regions. And we’re going to go even further. Good solutions that emerge anywhere in the world will be shared globally. In this way, we’ll avoid duplication of effort, increase our efficiency and accelerate the introduction of new technologies worldwide.
Our Digital Hub SEA will make us faster, more efficient and more secure. It will also open up new business fields for us.
Dr. Jörg Aign
Managing Director of TÜV NORD International
This will have an impact on the entire Group, won’t it?
That’s the vision in a nutshell. Southeast Asia is the launchpad for our fundamental global IT transformation. In the end, we’re all going to be working on a secure, cloud-first and AI-enabled platform. This will make the TÜV NORD GROUP an agile, data-driven and trustworthy partner – with security as its immovable foundation.
Digital security is an important issue: Have you factored it into your calculations?
Our platform is founded on security. We’re placing our reliance on a modern security architecture with “Zero Trust” as its basic principle. This means that no user, device or application is ever automatically trusted, whether it’s inside or outside the corporate network. Every access is consistently checked, every authorisation restricted to what is absolutely necessary and also time-limited. This prevents attackers from spreading throughout the system, even if they should manage to compromise one access point.
Could a platform like this contribute to the development of the company?
Yes, enormously. It will make us faster, more efficient and more secure. But above all, it will open up new business fields: Data-based services, digital test models, AI-supported analyses, to name just a few. It will transform us into a data-driven company, integrating AI into our processes and enabling us to develop new business models. In other words, the platform is going to be the foundation for sustainable success and the future of our business. We’re learning, trying things out, discovering new ways of working together and developing step by step. The key thing for us will be to go down this path as a team. AI will support us, expand our range of opportunities and give us humans, with all our knowledge, the freedom to be and stay unbeatable. Together, we’re going to shape the future of our company, and that’s exactly where our success will lie.
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