OnePlus today announced its first Research & Development (R&D) facility in India in Hyderabad. It plans to invest INR 1000 crore into its R&D facility over the next 3 years. “The facility will not only play a critical role in the development of Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning in OnePlus products but will also drive innovations that are centric and relevant to the company’s Indian community,” said the company. Moreover, it will also leverage the experienced and ingenious talent from Hyderabad, one of the biggest IT hubs in the country. Ramagopala Reddy Palukuri will be the Vice President and R&D Head of OnePlus India.
OnePlus said that it weighed in several critical factors before zeroing in on Hyderabad for the R&D centre. “Apart from having some of the most passionate OnePlus community members, the city is also one of the most active start-up zones in the country, especially in the space of emerging technologies,” said OnePlus.
Former Minister of Telangana, K. T. Rama Rao and Jayesh Ranjan IAS, Principal Secretary for IT and Industries inaugurated the OnePlus’ first R&D centre in India at the Vamsiram’s IT Park at the Wipro Circle in Nanakramguda.
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, software with focus on AI and performance testing. The facility overall will focus on 5 areas including Network, Global Carrier Customization, 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 company said that the R&D facility will play a crucial role as OnePlus charts its roadmap towards adopting the Indian market as its homeground. OnePlus added that it is committed to achieving long-term growth in India, and with the commencement of operations at the new R&D centre, it seeks to integrate & delve deeper into the ‘Make in India’ strategy.
The centre will also contribute to nurturing and giving opportunities to fresh talent with the company’s ongoing campus hiring program at a number of universities including the IIT Delhi and IIT Mumbai initiated last year. It has already upgraded to local production of PCBs as well as other smartphone components and will continue to look at further plans as the government announces the next wave of localization.
Commenting on the company’s plans in India, Pete Lau, Founder and CEO, said:
In three years, we plan to grow the new R&D centre in Hyderabad into our biggest globally. 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.