Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei will invest US$150 million in its research and development center to be built in Bangalore, the state capital of India's southern state of Karnataka, a top company official said yesterday.

The center will occupy more than 92,903 square meters and can accommodate about 4,000 people, according to Huawei, whose revenue was US$32 billion in 2011.

Huawei officials did not want to specify their hiring plans, but indicated they would pick up telecom engineers and networking specialists whenever there was a need.

The center will cater to Huawei's enterprise, telecom operators and mobile phone business segments.

"We see demand coming from 4G rollout in India, and the center will work on our next-generation smartphone handsets," said Scott Sykes, vice president of corporate media affairs at Huawei Technologies.

Last year, Huawei started making smartphones and has sold 60 million units to date, it said.

The Indian center will work on technologies that can increase battery life in smartphones. The company hopes to "further reduce the form factor in a smartphone and provide better quality battery life."