OnePlus to invest Rs 1,000 cr in Hyderabad R&D facility

Hyderabad:  Opening its first R&D centre in India on Monday, Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus said it plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore in their facility in Hyderabad over the next three years, making it the company's biggest such centre globally.

"In three years, we plan to grow the new R&D centre in Hyderabad into our biggest globally," said OnePlus Founder and CEO Pete Lau, while discussing the company's plans in the country.

"We plan to re-focus our R&D efforts on a large scale and drive innovations in India for the global product, especially on the software side with special emphasis on Artificial Intelligence, 5G and IoT," he added.

The OnePlus R&D centre will house three labs -- camera lab, communications and networking labs and automation labs that will focus heavily on camera development, 5G testing and software, with focus on AI and performance testing. 

Overall, the facility will focus on five areas including network, global carrier customisation, OxygenOS native apps, global product development, software innovation and finally, testing.

With regard to software and network, the centre will specifically work on the development of India-specific OxygenOS features, including OnePlus applications, design and development, and drive the 5G enablement for regions like India, EU and UK.

The centre will also contribute to nurturing and giving opportunities to fresh talent, with the company's ongoing campus hiring programme at a number of institutes, including the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi and Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai, initiated last year, OnePlus said.