NVIDIA Corp, the world's biggest graphic processor vendor, opened an expanded research and development center in Shanghai yesterday to tap into the world's No. 2 personal computer market.
The center is in the Zhangjiang High-Tech Industry Park in Pudong. It covers an area of 5,000 square meters with 200 employees now, compared to 800 square meters and 40 workers when it opened in 2005. Within two years, the center is expected to expand to 10,000 square meters, according to US-based Nvidia. It did not provide any investment figures.
"Shanghai, especially Zhangjiang, has a rich pool of talent like Silicon Valley and we are proud to work on the best video technologies here now," Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia co-founder and chief executive, said during the center's opening ceremony.
Nvidia provides computing video technologies for a wide range of industries including gaming, movie production and automobiles.
Almost all Chinese car makers design models based on Nvidia's technologies, according to Huang.
China's PC sales are expected to grow 19.9 percent to hit 27 million units in 2007, which accounts for 10 percent of the global PC market, according to IDC Corp, a US-based IT consulting firm.
Demand for advanced graphic cards was fueled by the launch of Windows Vista for PCs and more 3D games, industry insiders said.