Today, OnePlus inaugurated its first Research & Development center in India. The center, located in the southern city of Hyderabad, will initially focus on software features and cover areas such as AI, 5G, and IoT along the way.
The company said this is its biggest R&D facility yet, and it plans to host over 1,500 employees there within a couple of years. The company’s general manager for India, Vikas Agarwal said the team will aim to work on features – for India and other global markets – of OnePlus’ OxygenOS.
Along with this, the Chinese manufacturer will set up three labs in the new office: a camera experience improvement lab, an automation lab to test aging of a device, and a network research lab that’ll support the company’s ongoing 5G development.
The company’s product manager for India, Szymon Kopec, said the camera team in Hyderbad will work in tandem with the team in Taiwan’s camera lab, to improve image quality for Indian users.
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OnePlus is following steps of fellow Chinese company Oppo, which also opened a research facility in Hyderabad last year.
The company said it’ll invest over Rs 1,000 crore ($138 million) in coming years into this center, proving that India has always been an important country for OnePlus’ strategy. Just like the fellow Chinese phone company Oppo, OnePlus is making a smart bet to harness the abundance of software talent in India, to make itself more prominent in the country — and the world.
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