DuPont India, a subsidiary of US-based science-based products and services company DuPont, has opened its integrated knowledge centre - DuPont Knowledge Centre (DKC) - at Hyderabad to provide basic discovery research and applications development services.
The new R&D centre, which comes as DuPont's first plant biotech research centre outside the USA, houses a biotechnology lab, a materials research lab, an applications development lab, a global engineering design centre and greenhouses in the fifteen acres premises in the ICICI Knowledge Park in Genome Valley, Hyderabad.
The company is investing over Rs 130 crore to construct its first research and development centre in India with focus on basic research, product application development across all five of its business growth platforms, and other knowledge services for global and local markets, announced DuPont.
The DuPont Knowledge Centre brings together basic research, applications development, engineering design, bioinformatics, patent services, and many regional support services. The new research centre, built on a 'One DuPont' concept, will focus on integrated science research - unique combinations of biology, chemistry, materials science and engineering - to develop the company's application pipeline in India and other emerging markets.
"The DuPont Knowledge Centre is a critical component of our growth strategy and our investment in the DKC further demonstrates our commitment to India," said Balvinder S Kalsi, president and chief executive officer, DuPont India. The centre will enable to increase the 'speed to market' with products that come out of the R&D and innovations pipeline, not only for India but also for other growth regions, and help the company in its mission to become a billion dollar company, he added.
"We will have under one roof the key sciences such as organic, inorganic, and polymer chemistry, biology, and materials science coupled with engineering to create unique and commercializable solutions," says Homi Bhedwar, director, DuPont Knowledge Center.
The DKC, with strength of 180 staff, is expected to accommodate more than 300 scientists and other employees by next year. About 600 scientists, engineers and other employees will eventually work out of the DKC once it is fully functional, working closely with more than 5,000 scientists of DuPont located around the world. The facility is designed in a manner that allows for future expansion, informed Dupont in an announcement.
The DKC is the sixth major DuPont R&D facility outside the United States. DuPont has more than 50 R&D facilities throughout the world with 20 in the United States and more than 30 in 11 other nations. In addition to the Central R&D at the DuPont Experimental Station at Wilmington, USA, other major DuPont R&D facilities are located in Shanghai, China; Utsunomiya, Japan; Hsinchu, Taiwan; Wuppertal, Germany and Meyrin, Switzerland.
The company invests an average of $1.3 billion annually on global research and development in a diverse range of technologies for many markets including agriculture, automotive, construction, electronics, chemicals and industrial materials.