Spotlight: China's overseas research centers yield win-win results

As China has been emerging as a powerhouse of the world economy, Chinese enterprises have paid a lot of attention to advanced technology, innovation and personnel training, and set up dozens of research and development centers abroad.

These overseas R&D centers not only play an important role in Chinese industry development, but also benefit local communities, such as creating jobs, providing financial support and granting access to the Chinese market.

Last year, China's leading information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider Huawei announced a second overseas investment program in France worth 1.9 billion U.S. dollars. According to the program, Huawei will make research there a key task, thus creating jobs for locals.

In Paris, Huawei has opened four R&D centers. Among them, the Mathematical and Algorithmic Sciences Lab at Paris' west suburban Boulogne-Billancourt city has hired nearly 60 researchers, of whom 90 percent are local people. At present, approximately 100 local researchers work with Huawei's research centers in France.

Actually, Huawei has not only created jobs for local people, but also helped the French government retain talents.

Merouane Debbah, director of the Mathematical and Algorithmic Sciences Lab, planned to travel to the U.S. Silicon Valley before working with Huawei.

Debbah has recognized Huawei's ambitious development plan. "There are very few companies who believe in the mathematical process to solve problems in telecommunications. In the United States, this is the case; companies like Facebook, Google are 'big boxes' having many mathematicians devoted to Big Data. Huawei has made this bet. It is very ambitious," Debbah said.

He found that in a Chinese company like Huawei and, generally speaking, in China, people have great respect for engineers. He said that in Huawei's research center in France, research is indeed a top priority. "Researchers see themselves as being jewels in a box. It's completely different from those many French or European companies. They generally attach importance to marketing, business and other sectors..."

In the United States, many big Chinese companies are also vying to take root there, trying to study U.S. advanced technology, managerial expertise and development opportunities on the one hand, and channeling U.S. products into China's huge market on the other hand.

China's leading home appliance manufacturer Changhong, a newcomer in intelligent technology, opened its R&D center in Silicon Valley early this year after years of elaborate investigation.

Besides doing research, Changhong's U.S. center focuses on the investment and incubation of startups by providing funds, equipment and a venue in the United States and its manufacturing capability and distribution network in China.

Pan Jiantao, manager of Changhong's U.S. R&D center, said, "I usually tell people that the cooperation with Changhong is not just a cooperation with an investor, but a cooperation with a manufacture parter, market partner, strategic analyst parter and so on. There are various cooperation models with the U.S. company."

Similarly, the U.S. research center of China's largest commercial retail enterprise Suning functions not only serves as a lab, but also as a channel for U.S. companies to access the Chinese market. The smart bracelet of the U.S. Misfit company has been on sale in China through Suning's network.

Baidu, the largest Chinese search engine in the world, opened its research center in Silicon Valley three years ago, and has been devoting itself to a world innovation center.

Baidu pays great attention to contact and communication with local scientific and technological circles, winning the admiration and respect of local people.

Bryan Catanzaro, senior researcher at Baidu's Silicon Valley AI Lab, said, "It wasn't until later as I learnt more about Baidu that I got more excited about working at Baidu." This is "not just because of the great people that are doing amazing research, but also because I find it really exciting to be part of the dynamic, really fast growing Chinese Internet ecosystem."

"One of the reasons that I'm here is because I care passionately about artificial intelligence... Baidu is one of the leaders in artificial intelligence research," said Catanzaro, who worked at NVIDIA Research before.

One could indeed say that China's overseas research centers have succeeded in connecting China with the world, yielding win-win results for both China and other countries. Endi