ZF Friedrichshafen AG, the global major in driveline and chassis technology as well as active and passive safety technology, today announced that it has signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with the government of Telangana to set up a new Technical Center in Hyderabad.

The LoI was signed in the presence of K T Rama Rao, Minister for IT, MA & UD, Industries & Commerce, government of Telangana, and Mamatha Chamarthi, senior vice-president and executive lead for the India Technology Center (ITC), and other senior government and ZF officials. The new Technology Center will be dedicated to electronics embedded software and mechanical engineering. The center will support ZF’s global development teams while enabling the company to accelerate local product development supporting ZF automotive and non-automotive operations and customers in India.

ZF’s first Technology Center in India will be fully operational by January 1, 2017 and is expected to have a workforce of 2,500 engineers by 2020 including the 1,000 engineers who are currently working with ZF. Further, the company also has an existing team of mechanical engineers based in Pune and Coimbatore to address the local market requirements of automotive and non-automotive OEMs.

Mamatha Chamarthi, senior vice-president and executive lead for the new India Technology Center (ITC), said: “India offers a huge, technologically competent talent pool which aligns with the growing demand from our customers for advanced software, electronics and mechanical engineering. Access to this diverse talent base coupled with a progressive local government and robust infrastructure has made Hyderabad favorable for setting up the first technology center for ZF in India.”

Welcoming the new investment by ZF in the state of Telangana, K T Rama Rao, minister for IT, MA & UD, Industries & Commerce, Telangana, said: "We look at this investment by ZF as an eco-system builder for Hyderabad. We have unveiled our IT Policy 2016 for the State of Telangana along with several sectoral policies earlier this year and our government will be working with ZF to evolve a comprehensive engineering services policy for aggressively promoting the sector."