Dell Computer Corp., America’s top personal-computer maker, recently announced it would set up a PC research center in Beijing. The company saw growth of 38.5 percent in 2000, placing it fifth in terms of Chinese market share.

Microsoft Corp. has also announced total investment of US$40 million over the next few years to expand its Asian Regional Engineering Center in Shanghai. The scale of the center will be doubled, enabling it to provide global support for development tools of Windows and Microsoft Office via the Internet.

Company Chairman Bill Gates kicked off the Microsoft Research (China) project with US$80 million in Beijing after his visit to China in 1998. It became only the second Microsoft research facility outside the United States. Gates later set up another three institutes. Microsoft has taken a major share of the domestic operating system software market, and has forged strategic alliances with nearly 100 Chinese software developers, quite a few of whom enjoy great prestige in the world.

International Business Machines Co. (IBM) set up its research institute on the Chinese mainland in 1995, and officially opened its Systems Integration Services Center five years later in Shanghai’s Pudong. The center is the third of its kind in Asia, the other two being in India and Japan.

It is designed to undertake development of software and applications and provide system integration services to customers on the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The center's primary focus will be in the areas of banking, finance, manufacturing and e-business. It can help local businesses develop system integration programs, linking customer services, finance and production and management to reduce costs and raise efficiency.

Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies, established a branch in Beijing in 1998. It also invested US$9 million for the establishment of a research and development center for an optical network project in Shenzhen at about the same time. This project is the largest of its kind in Asia. Lucent has built one third of China’s optical transmission network. Bell Labs Research (China) ranks first in China, boasting about 400 employees in its Beijing branch. The Beijing research office's work will focus on networks, communications software, optic networking, computer science and applied mathematics.

Intel Corp., the biggest computer chip maker, last April announced the establishment of Intel China Lab, an umbrella program for its R&D organizations in China. It is designed to increase the adoption and use of telecommunications and networking technologies in China.

Finland’s Nokia, one of the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers, has established seven plants and one research center in China, and plans further research expansion in the next few years, with a total investment of US$1 billion.

More than 100 research institutes had been set up by famous multinational companies by the end of last year, which involve various areas of computers, software, telecommunications, and chemistry, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. Analysts also point out that the multinational’s research centers are expected to double in the next five years.

(CIIC by Shan Xingmei 02/26/2001)