Nokia expands R&D centre in Bengaluru to work on 5G

Bengaluru: Nokia on Wednesday announced the expansion of its R&D centre here with the inauguration of its new, state-of-the-art facility that will focus on  next-generation technologies.

The facility will carry out research in areas including the cloud, big data analytics, development of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and applications as well as next-generation core and 5G, the company said in a release.

Located at Manyata Embassy Park here, the facility was inaugurated by Karnataka Minister for IT, BT and Tourism Priyank Kharge.

The centre, one of Nokia's four global R&D sites, currently employs more than 6,000 engineers, with that number to rise in 2018, it said.

"The expansion of our presence in India is a testimony to our deep commitment to harness the enormous potential of local talent for research and development.

The centre will provide a huge opportunity for bright engineers to work on upcoming technologies which will change the way we live and work," Head of the technology centre Rupa Santosh said.

Nokia had established a dedicated 5G/IoT lab in Bengaluru last year to work on applications for smart cities and public safety, as well as a number of IoT use cases  including real-time city surveillance, smart parking.

The company said it was already working with Indian service providers including Bharti Airtel and BSNL to help them transform their networks for 5G.

This centre will further allow Indian and global service providers to leverage Nokia's technology leadership and develop capabilities for future technologies, it said.