Intel To Invest $25 Mln For Indian R&D Unit

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, Nov 12, 2001

(Reuters) Intel Corp plans to invest $25 million to set up a new technology development centre in India's technology capital of Bangalore and expand its engineering staff by 60 percent to about 800 by mid-2002, a top company official said.

"We see value in using the engineering resources available in India," Avtar Saini, Intel's director for South Asia told Reuters by electronic mail. "It's a long-term strategic direction for the company."

Intel, which currently employs 500 engineers in six different locations at Bangalore, plans to consolidate the majority of its activities in the new building, Saini said.

Despite the worst slump so far in the semiconductor market, the world's No. 1 chipmaker has stuck to its aggressive global spending plans.

Staff at the Bangalore centre, which is Intel's largest non-manufacturing site in Asia, work on applications and technologies for e-business and develop software and hardware for networking and communications.

Intel has in the last few years taken advantage of India's vast army of cost-efficient English-speaking software workers to scale up its operations in the country.

Intel's president Craig Barrett said earlier this year that his company saw Ireland, Israel and India as hotbeds for new technology, referred to by Intel as its "three Is" investment strategy.