IBM yesterday launched a new research lab in Shanghai in an effort to boost its R&D strength in one of the world's fastest growing countries.

The IBM Shanghai research lab, located at Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Pudong New Area, will serve to help IBM attract more talent from southern China.

It will primarily focus on research fields such as cloud computing, information analytics and Web-delivered service computing and will host 100 researchers in the next couple of years.

"The very nature of research is changing. It is more open, more global and more collaborative," said John Kelly, IBM senior vice-president and director of IBM Research. "We are coming to Shanghai because of the exceptional talent and the greatest people here."

IBM spends US$6 billion every year on research and development and has about 3,000 researchers in eight research labs around the world.

The company established its China Research Laboratory in Beijing as early as 1995 and now has more than 200 researchers in the country.

IBM's announcement comes as many multinational companies are starting to reduce their overseas investments to cope with the global economic slump.

But Kelly said he is confident about IBM's future in a fierce market environment.

"As banks consolidate, there is also a huge need for IT consolidation and banks' transactions will also grow after the consolidation," he said, noting that the importance of IT will not decline.

(China Daily October 14, 2008)