Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) is planning to expand its research and development (R&D) center in Taiwan to tap the country’s high-tech talent, a Ministry of Economic Affairs official said yesterday.
“HP has filed an application with the ministry to expand the workforce of its Taiwan R&D center to 1,000 staffers within three years from the current 600,” an official from the ministry’s Department of Industrial Technology said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said HP is seeking financial aid from the ministry for the R&D center expansion, but he declined to disclose further details.
The government has come up with various incentives to encourage foreign companies to use Taiwan as an R&D hub.
HP expressed its R&D expansion intent to the ministry 18 months ago, the official said, adding that both HP and the government have been involved in long-term discussions on the issue.
“Taiwan has long been part of HP’s global supply chain and the company is expected to take advantage of the country’s high-tech strength through the expansion,” the official said.
“For Taiwan’s part, the government hopes the expansion at HP, a world leader in the high-tech sector, will enhance the country’s global visibility and boost sales,” he said.
HP was one of the first batch of foreign high-tech companies to open an R&D center in Taiwan in the early 2000s, the official said.
HP Taiwan was not immediately available for comment on the expansion plan.
A day earlier, the ministry said in a statement that it had approved a financial aid application filed by Microsoft Corp to support the company’s Taiwanese software and services center, which opened last year.
While the statement did not disclose the amount of aid, the official said the ministry had agreed to shoulder 25 percent of the total NT$400 million (US$12.45 million) investment into Microsoft’s research center.
The center focuses on the development of cloud computing technology in collaboration with Microsoft’s Taiwanese partners.
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