Asian Lite - Top Asian Newspaper in the UK. Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Pakistani, Middle East and North Asian and International news & headlines.

General Electric (GE) would invest an additional Rs.300 crore to expand the research and technology development facility in this tech hub and leverage the talent pool for its global operations, a top company official said Thursday.

"In addition to Rs.1,000 crore we have invested in the John F. Technology Centre here over the past decade, we will invest about Rs.300 crore this year to expand the R&D facility," GE India Chief Executive John Flannery announced at an event here.

As GE's first and largest integrated multi-disciplinary R&D facility outside the US, the centre focuses on innovation and development of new technologies, products and solutions in diverse industrial areas, including energy, healthcare and transportation.

"Though we have been present in India over a century, setting up the country's first 4.5 megawatt hydro-electric power station in 1902 at Sivasamudram in the erstwhile Mysore state, we are delighted to be back here to leverage the eco-system and talent pool for our global operations," Flannery said at the Global Investors' Meet (GIM 2012), which got underway earlier in the day.

Set up in the name of its former chief executive Jack Welch, the centre has about 5,000 engineers and scientists working in multiple areas such as energy, lighting, water treatment, healthcare, aerospace and chemicals.

"The centre has filed about 1,500 global patents for the technologies and products developed by our bright engineers and scientists," Flannery noted.