Nvidia's new India center to do cutting-edge design

BANGALORE, INDIA -- Nvidia's new design center in Bangalore, India, will be doing cutting-edge chip design and embedded software development for the company's various product lines, according to an executive of the Santa Clara, California-based vendor of graphics and digital media processors.

"We are here in India for the talent that is available in the country, and not to cut costs," Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of Nvidia, told reporters Tuesday in Bangalore. In the past, the company had hired engineers from India to work in the U.S., but because of the large talent pool available in India, it decided to set up a design center in the country, Huang added.

Nvidia announced Monday that it was setting up a new design center in India. The center, which already has 23 staffers, will eventually have about 100 staff, Huang said. "Going forward I see no hesitation in seeing us investing 25 percent of our R&D expenditure in India," he added. Nvidia already operates engineering centers in China and Taiwan.

Besides conducting research and development at its Bangalore center, Nvidia also plans to work with other Indian companies such as Wipro on development. As part of its strategy to grow the market for its products in India, the company also plans to partner with Internet service providers (ISPs), Huang said. The ISP partnerships are designed to help the companies couple their broadband services with content and gaming, which will require PCs and other devices that use Nvidia's products, Huang added.