Hon Hai to invest US$40 million in high-tech US plant, robotics R&D

WASHINGTON - Taiwan's Hon Hai Group, the main assembler of Apple Inc.'s iPhones and iPads, is to build a high-end manufacturing base in the US State of Pennsylvania. Company Chairman and founder, Terry Gou, said Hon Hai, known as Foxconn in China, will invest US$40 million over the next two years expanding its existing R&D operation in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and in research and development (R&D) in manufacturing innovation and automation.

US$30 million of the investment will be used to convert the Group's current R&D offshoot in Harrisburg into a high-end manufacturing base. He stressed that Hon Hai, the world's largest electronics manufacturing service provider, does not intend to move low-end jobs from China to the Pennsylvania facility. The company instead aims to create a high-tech, high-precision, high value-added manufacturing business that uses robotics and automated technologies to reduce production costs.

US$10 million of the total investment will finance a robotics and automation technology project backed by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), one of the world's top institutes for robotics research, Gou said.  www.foxconn.com (ATI).