Apple to open R&D center in Shenzhen in 2017

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Apple on Wednesday local China time announced plans to open a research and development center in the southern city of Shenzhen in 2017, further cementing relations with the important growth market.





Apple CEO Tim Cook (left) meets with Party Secretary of Shenzhen Ma Xingrui. | Source: Shenzhen Economic Daily




CEO Tim Cook made the announcement Tuesday night during a meeting with local officials as part of a national innovation summit, Reuters reports, citing the Shenzhen Economic Daily.



According to the local publication, Communist Party Secretary of Shenzhen Ma Xingrui and his deputy, Mayor Xu Qin, attended the event. Foxconn CEO Terry Gou, whose company serves as a major Apple supplier and controls significant manufacturing assets in the region, was also on hand for the announcement.



With the upcoming R&D center Apple is looking to expand its partnership with Shenzhen, a bustling metropolis known for its prowess in producing high technology goods. In an interview, Cook said Shenzhen has undergone tremendous changes since he first visited the city 20 years ago to inspect the manufacturing mecca. Cook went on to tout "Shenzhen quality" as an important contributor to successful Apple's product lines like iPhone, adding that the city's factory processes lead much of the world.



In an emailed statement to Reuters, Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock offered further detail on the upcoming facility.



"We are excited to be opening a new Research and Development center here next year so our engineering team can work even more closely and collaboratively with our manufacturing partners," Rosenstock said. "The Shenzhen center, along with the Beijing center, is also aimed at strengthening relationships with local partners and universities as we work to support talent development across the country," he said.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    paul.feldersteinpaul.felderstein Posts: 6unconfirmed, member
    Because the dangerous, militaristic Communist Chinese government isn't at cyberwar with us, isn't stealing iPhone secrets and is nothing to worry about at all.
    lkrupprevenant
  • Reply 2 of 14
    Because the dangerous, militaristic Communist Chinese government isn't at cyberwar with us, isn't stealing iPhone secrets and is nothing to worry about at all.
    "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." - The Godfather , part II
    jony0
  • Reply 3 of 14
    Because the dangerous, militaristic Communist Chinese government isn't at cyberwar with us, isn't stealing iPhone secrets and is nothing to worry about at all.
    Apple isn't 'us'  Heck, if I read you right, 'us ' is trying to steal iPhone secrets too, and has a larger military spend, and 'us' is killing more non-'us' people than everyone except for possibly Russia


    revenantcalisingularity
  • Reply 4 of 14
    paul.feldersteinpaul.felderstein Posts: 6unconfirmed, member
    I think you underestimate the desire of that foreign government to defeat Apple there and to eventually take over its factory. It's foolish to let one of our most valuable companies create value in the camp of a government that is committed to being our enemy. Note the word: not our competitor. Our military enemy. They are not benign. The time just hasn't come yet for action.
    lkrupp
  • Reply 5 of 14
    paul.feldersteinpaul.felderstein Posts: 6unconfirmed, member
    Apple is like Obama. The world is our friend. What could possibly go wrong?
    SpamSandwichlkrupp
  • Reply 6 of 14
    I hope no source code goes over with them. what would stop the chinese government from going in and confiscating the computers on some bull charge?
    jony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 14
    Glad to see Apple trying to foster good will in China. Nobody knows what the future holds, which means Apple has a 50% chance to succeed as well as a 50% chance to fail. Whatever the outcome though having the opportunity to try offers Apple much firsthand knowledge that other major US-based technology companies do not have. 
    cali
  • Reply 8 of 14
    revenant said:
    I hope no source code goes over with them. what would stop the chinese government from going in and confiscating the computers on some bull charge?
    I have a new theory. It's possible Apple foresees a future in which China requires any products sold in their market to be developed using Chinese labor, technology and software, so Apple could conceivably create China-only Apple products in the future which would never be sold beyond their borders and which would conform completely with their requirements.
  • Reply 9 of 14
    I think you underestimate the desire of that foreign government to defeat Apple there and to eventually take over its factory. It's foolish to let one of our most valuable companies create value in the camp of a government that is committed to being our enemy. Note the word: not our competitor. Our military enemy. They are not benign. The time just hasn't come yet for action.
    You're conflating industrial espionage with military espionage. Or are limiting your rhetoric to 140 characters.

    I don't underestimate it...   On your military red herring: You underestimate the 'U.S.' government will to do the same to their own, and the overt 'non-benigness' of said gov't.   We don't own apple.  The world does (welcome to world capitalism). 

    And if you think the physical location somehow provides data loss protection in a global cold military conflict, you don't understand the cyberthreat.

    On your corporate protectionism argument:  If that is your argument is apple as a profitable company is doomed because China will siphon secrets to chinese industry, then Apple is doomed now, with or without opening up this facility.   Bottom Line, Apple's survival is to remain one step faster than the wolves, and the trade off of tapping into the Chinese skill set vs the risk of these players being coopted by their country's intelligence forces weighs on the side getting the skills.






    roundaboutnowjony0
  • Reply 10 of 14
    Not just Chinese or Russian, American spies (including hackers) are also all over the world. You're just not going to hear about it from our end when we hack other countries. We got caught hacking Britain at one point. I am pretty sure U.S. is way ahead of the game when it comes to spying in order to remain superpower.
    edited October 2016
  • Reply 11 of 14
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    In other news Samdung to open a facility next to Apples like they did in Israel.
  • Reply 12 of 14
    paul.feldersteinpaul.felderstein Posts: 6unconfirmed, member
    theothergeoff: there are so many mistakes and what you wrote I don't even know where to start. Let's just say that if you don't understand the importance of physical colocation and theft opportunity, then you don't understand Beadley Manning or Edward Snowden, and you don't understand much, so why are we talking. sounds to me like you're in a pissing contest to prove you're smarter. Fine, you win.. As for what the others wrote – I'm an American and I'm on our side. Not interested in drawing fashionable moral equivalencies. interested in winning, and preventing our enemies from taking our secrets. Apple is most definitely "us" whether or not you or they like it.
  • Reply 13 of 14
    paul.feldersteinpaul.felderstein Posts: 6unconfirmed, member
    Bradley. whoops.
  • Reply 14 of 14
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    theothergeoff: there are so many mistakes and what you wrote I don't even know where to start. Let's just say that if you don't understand the importance of physical colocation and theft opportunity, then you don't understand Beadley Manning or Edward Snowden, and you don't understand much, so why are we talking. sounds to me like you're in a pissing contest to prove you're smarter. Fine, you win.. As for what the others wrote – I'm an American and I'm on our side. Not interested in drawing fashionable moral equivalencies. interested in winning, and preventing our enemies from taking our secrets. Apple is most definitely "us" whether or not you or they like it.
    Your view is the patriotic nationalist view, fused with anxiety because of the apparent loss of American supremacy, combined no doubt with the apparent loss of your own personal feeling of supremacy, both caused by the passing of the John Wayne/George Patton era in world history. (I say this because of your evident belligerent attitude.)

    The era of American imperial hegemony is based on forces that are automatically unwinding  in the era of electronic media. I keep telling you guys to read your Marshall McLuhan. The earth is now wired, inderdependent in ways impossible and unimagined in the days of naval empires, which is where your head is stuck.

    Tim Cook is the first global executive with real power to understand this interdependence in a real and practical way. His corporation, which stands at the beginning of the age of global cooperation the way the East India Company stood at the beginning of the age of colonial, imperial -state competition, is wirelessly connecting the social instincts of humanity among the former warring nations — this new system will result in a post-national, trans-ethnic system of interlocked economies and intellectual pursuits, given our conscious wiil. The resulting synergy, the power of inclusiveness that Tim Cook is always talking about, is already modeled by Apple's incredibly rapid global success.

    The America-first voice of the old imperialism that you unfortunately join in expressing here represents a threat to the new consciousness that has already appeared, but whose continued progress is by no means assured, given the number of people who refuse to see it.
    edited October 2016 singularity
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