Huawei opens new R&D centre in southern France

 China's leading telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei opened a new research and development (R&D) center in southern France on Friday.
According to Huawei, the decision to open the new R&D site in Sophia Antipolis technology park, 25 km southwest of Nice, was prompted by the fertile IT ecosystem of the hub, as well as the availability of skilled engineers in the area, who are world-renowned for their know-how in the fields of electronic devices and software.
The R&D center will mainly focus on improving the quality of smartphone cameras, building the best Image Signal Processor (ISP) and also developing Huawei's expertise in the fields of micro-electronics and software.
Huawei plans to integrate the first chipset developed by its engineers in Sophia Antipolis in its terminals by 2015.
"We are very proud of this R&D site, which represents perfectly what France can provide in terms of skills on the global IT market," said Song Kai, general director of Huawei France.
For the new R&D center, Huawei has hired 20 engineers, most of whom are former researchers of Texas Instruments. Ten more engineers will join the team by the end of the year.
The opening of Huawei's Sophia Antipolis site marks a further step in the company's European strategy and brings to 17 the total number of its facilities in Europe, located in eight countries -- Britain, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Sweden.