Intel Corporation announced on Wednesday its plans to invest $120 million in a new R&D facility in Bangalore. The new facility, whose foundation stone was laid Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, is to become operational next year. Intel’s existing Bangalore facility, which started operations a decade ago, is a global centre for Intel’s chip design and platform development.
Intel India President Kumud Srinivasan said the purpose of the new facility is to “consolidate” the company’s workforce, which is now scattered at different locations in the city, some of which are leased by the company. The company employs about 4,500 persons, most of whom are based in Bangalore, Ms. Srinivasan said. “This facility is Intel’s largest non-manufacturing R&D facility outside the US,” she pointed out.
Asked about recent reports that Intel is planning a five per cent reduction in its global headcount, Ms. Srinivasan said, “The lay-offs are aimed at enabling us to go where the market is headed.” “The idea is to shift headcount from low priority areas to high priority areas,” she said. The company is focused on “high-growth” areas such as mobiles, tablets and the possibilities offered by the Internet of Things (IoT), she added.
Asked about the company’s hiring plans in India, she said, “There are no plans for fresh hiring, certainly not in 2014, not in the immediate future too.” Referring to the demand for chips in the personal computer space, which had slacked considerably in the last few years, Ms. Srinivasan said, “We believe demand for PCs is coming back because PC penetration in India is very low, less than 10 per cent.”
Referring to the company’s prospects for Intel in the IoT space, Ms. Srinivasan said: “We have been in the embedded devices space for a very long time and we have been a part of the evolution of the space, in terms of sensors and processors, for a long time.” Observing that analytics would play an important role in this field, she said,
Intel is actively engaged with state governments so that it can participate in tenders issued by them, Ms. Srinivasan said.
