Handset giant expands mobile infrastructure R&D centre in Sichuan in China

Nokia is planning to beef up its R&D operations in China by increasing the remit of its existing Chengdu centre to include the development of mobile network infrastructure products for global and local markets.

The mobile giant's Chengdu R&D Centre in Sichuan Province, established in August 2005, started life as a focused unit for IP Multimedia Subsystem applications.

However, the firm will expand the facility's scope to include systems such as carrier grade platform middleware, Wap gateways for mobile browsing, intelligent packet core subsystems and increasing multimedia applications.

"The Chinese mobile market is seeing tremendous growth, and digital convergence is coming to the mobile mass market in China," said Jouni Pirhonen, head of Nokia's Chengdu R&D Centre.