New Delhi: Italian auto component supplier Marelli on Tuesday inaugurated its new technical R&D centre in Bengaluru, further boosting its innovation capability, particularly in software engineering.
When fully operational, the new technical R&D centre, together with the company’s established engineering centre in Gurugram (Delhi area), will increase Marelli India’s R&D capability, boosting its research team to more than 1,600 members, the company said in a media release. In particular, the Bangalore Center is expected to employ around 600 engineers in 2 years.
The main activities of the Bangalore Center will be focused on major technology areas of Marelli such as electronics, automotive lighting and both internal combustion and electric powertrain. In particular, it will develop software for Cockpit DCU (Domain Control Units), Digital Clusters, Powertrain, and Electric Powertrain products; system validation for Electronic Systems, Powertrain and Electric Powertrain products and Automotive Lighting in the future, including sensing technologies; and Mechanical Design Simulations for Electronics and moving forward for Automotive Lighting products.
“I am absolutely delighted to celebrate this major new strategic step for Marelli. India is one the most important R&D and innovation hubs in the world, and we are very excited about the deep talent pool here,” Dinesh Paliwal, Executive Chairman, Marelli, said. “Marelli is not investing in India for cost arbitrage – those days are long gone – we are investing for the combination of brain arbitrage, humility, hunger, innovation and speed that India uniquely offers. Our mission in India is to help our customers differentiate their vehicles of the future based on vehicle performance and vehicle personality, leveraging technologies for which India will play a crucial role,” he said.
The new facility is located in the Embassy Manyata Tech Park of Bengaluru, a city which is recognized as a major engineering and software hub at global level, thus offering Marelli the opportunity to leverage a wide talent pool in the crucial technical domains of core competencies.
“As a partner to our customers in co-creating the future of mobility, our focus is on developing breakthrough technologies responding to the evolving needs of OEMs and end users. That’s why further expanding Marelli’s R&D capabilities is key to our success,” David Slump, President and CEO, Marelli, said. “Together with our strong and competent team in Gurugram, the new Technical R&D center in Bangalore will be strategically important to boost technology evolution in crucial fields such as new vehicle architectures, software-defined vehicles and innovative cloud-based solutions,” he added.
“With software becoming a key element in enabling the vehicle of the future and a crucial differentiator in the automotive market, it will be critically important for Marelli to boost our capabilities in this technological field, to develop highly competitive and attractive products,” Ravi Tallapragada, President of Marelli India and Electronic Systems division of Marelli, said. “The knowhow offered by our two Indian R&D centres will make a decisive contribution in achieving this, complementing the work of our other R&D centers globally,” he added.
The Bengaluru centre, along with the well-established engineering centre in Gurugram, will work in close collaboration with all the existing Marelli innovation centres in Japan, Italy, China, Germany, United States and the other countries where the company is present, to accelerate the evolution of products and solutions on a technological and competitiveness perspective, for the Indian and global market.
With this new opening, the company’s Indian footprint includes 14 production sites and 2 R&D centres in seven cities.
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