By Wang Xu (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-11-02 13:50

EMC Corp, the world's largest storage system provider, opened a research and development center in Beijing yesterday, a major part of its plan to raise its investment in China to US$1 billion in the next five years.

The US-based company opened its first research center in Shanghai last June and said it had earmarked US$500 million to invest in China by 2012.

Company officials yesterday said EMC had raised the investment plan to US$1 billion, trying to capture a larger slice of China's booming storage system market.

"We are pleased with the talent we found here," said Joseph Tucci, EMC's chairman, president and CEO. "Our research centers in China will mostly be used for products and projects targeting the global market."

The new center in Beijing will house over 200 engineers and concentrate on EMC's core technologies such as information storage, security, and resource management. The company will also open a lab for basic research in China, its first one outside the United States.

It plans to open 20 offices across the nation and increase its staff number to 2,500 by 2010, more than half of which will be R&D personnel, according to Tucci. It now has more than 900 employees in its seven sales offices and two research centers in China.

The company has enjoyed brisk growth in China over the past few years, thanks to the nation's spending spree in IT technology and infrastructure.

China is now EMC's fastest growing regional market, according to Tucci. The US tech giant notched up 16 percent revenue growth in 2006 and is expecting even stronger performance this year.