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Chinese Media, Government Confirm Apple Research Center in Beijing Tech Corridor (appleinsider.com)
An anonymous reader writes:According to Chinese media, Apple is launching its first research and development center in the country, located in long-time technology incubation area Zhongguancun Science Park, Beijing. While Apple has yet to comment on the matter, a statement issued by the Zhongguancun Park Management Committee to several Chinese media outlets has identified Apple's presence in the area. According to reports collated by Digitimes, the center has a budget of about $15 million, with a long-term expenditure goal of $45 million over the next few years. The center is allegedly seeking to hire around 500 workers, with no particular focus beyond Apple products and software. The move mirrors similar setups in Japan, and Israel.
Your lucky numbers are: 3, 12, 17, 26, 31, and 52.
$15m / 500 workers = average salary of $30k per year. I think I'll stay here.
"Designed by Apple in California - Assembled in China" will have to become "Made in China"
They will have to stop claiming "Designed in California" on everything they sell, right?
The Chinese government will supply the bodies to Apple.
You run the risk of industrial espionage anywhere, but Apple sells products based not upon superiority but cachet. Thus, the risk is not lower for them, only the penalty.
If you're not actually building manufacturing facilities then there's no risk of losing your massive capitol outlay.
On the other hand, Apple will probably insensibly insist upon building their own campus while there's plenty of empty office space already.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'll use my credit card:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUqDHW0jmkw
I'm just barely old enough to remember the time in the 80s when everyone was scared to death that Japan was going to take over the US. They had just come into their own as a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse -- even Back to the Future had a classic line where 1950s Doc Brown scoffed at an IC made in Japan and Marty corrected him saying "All the best stuff is made in Japan!" Towards the end of the 80s, Japanese companies started making some very high profile US acquisitions, including buying lots of expensive public real estate. Everyone in high tech at the time was concerned but as soon as that started, mainstream news articles appeared predicting the end of the US economy much the same way people are saying the Chinese are going to destroy us today.
The interesting thing is that a lot of the Japanese miracle turned out to be a currency bubble and Japan entered a very long deflationary period after that. So now the question is...China has way more control over their economy than Japan ever did, a huge population, and a limitless budget to spend on infrastructure and economic development. I wonder if it actually might happen this time. Basically all high-tech manufacturing is done in China (try finding components not made there) and now US companies are starting to move R&D closer to the factories, where they can get cheap labor on both sides of the table.
I think a lot of the hype might be overblown just like last time, but the scenario is just different enough to make me think twice. If you make it so young engineers can't get R&D jobs, and young factory workers can't get factory jobs, you're basically done as a country.
They tell us that manufacturing jobs are moving to low-regulation and low-salary countries so we need to focus on our knowledge and build a knowledge economy. If India hasn't dispelled that myth, then perhaps Apple starting to migrate its knowledge departments to China will.
Huawei has a research & development center in Silicon Valley as well....
I'm surprised that Apple can do all the required Chinese language localization without having a China R&D center before...
Engineering, programming, and everything else STEM is going overseas.
There are billions of very poor people and there are hundreds of millions of very smart people among them.
Given what is known about China and how they literally have pulled the biggest heist since in human history I do not understand why Apply is doing this. The annual losses in IP that the US experiences are comparable to the current annual level of U.S. exports to Asia—over $300 billion. According to the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, If IP were to receive the same protection overseas that it does here, the American economy would add millions of jobs. Countless companies have moved to China and within a decade seen competitors steal their trade secrets and come out with almost identical products. What is even more baffling is that Apple is obsessed with secrecy. Does it not care that both the Chinese government and industry are hellbent on nullifying it?
Its iBooks and movies were disallowed early in 2016. The Chinese government uses 'security audits' to hack both Apple and the US government. In Beijing, a municipal tribunal issued an injunction earlier this year barring the sale of its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Beijing's Intellectual Property Office ruled against Apple in a patent dispute brought by a smaller Chinese handset maker. Both cases were fictitious. As a matter of fact (something monumentally unimportant to the Chinese government) it was clear that Apple developed the technology first.
Perhaps this is some attempt to stop the Chinese state from openly discriminating against Apple? I very much doubt this will work over the long run. I highly doubt that in 2026 Apple will be flourishing commercially in China.
I once had a lengthy conversation with a member of China's elite. She came from a wealthy family and her fiance had been a Harvard engineering grad student. She was exceptionally well read and well traveled. She even knew about the contributions of Otto von Bismarck . (How many Americans would know the same?) I asked her whether the US could come to some arrangement with China and even cede the South China Sea and East Asia as a sphere of influence including the artificial islands in it. And that after each country had satisfied each others needs they could cooperate for world peace and stability. She responded that China was a rising power and the US was a declining one, that it was for China to 'take' whatever it wanted, that war was inevitable between such nations, and that she had no wish for dialogue. She exemplified the ruthless determination for hegemony that is widespread throughout the Chinese elite, be it economic, political, cultural, or military.
I wish American companies would get with reality on this issue. People in 100 years will look back at the Monroe Doctrine in the nineteenth century or even the brief period of US hegemony from 1989 through 2003 and perceive those periods as golden ages when compared with the ruthless Chinese subjugation that is only just beginning.
...on a budget of $15 million?
Let's say you pay everyone $10,000/year. We'll figure a conservative 200% overhead on an employee for office space, equipment, paper, insurance, etc., so $30,000/employee/year. For 500 employees, that's $15 million/year.
Apple's a pretty smart company.
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.