Smart People Everywhere | Green Energy News

October 19, 2003 – Vol.8 No.30

SMART PEOPLE EVERYWHERE.

The world is filled with imaginative minds, intellectual talent, people with new and different ways of thinking. Those minds can offer an alternative view or add new insights that can solve problems or create new products. International corporations know that a good mind - no matter where it is in the world - should be utilized, not wasted.

General Electric, which has engineering and research centers in Niskayuma, New York and Bangalore, India. has now opened one in Shanghai, China.

The $64-million dollar GE China Technology Center will serve as a research laboratory for technologies that would end up in future products and services; provide engineering support for GE’s sourcing and procurement activities in China and be an educational center for employees, customers and suppliers operating in the country.

And which technologies might those hired brains be working on? Among them (and in relation to energy) are power electronics and controls, primarily for renewable energy systems, power turbines, advanced materials such as conductive polymers, and nano-materials for applications such as hydrogen storage.

The Center now has 500 employees, and is expected to grow to 1200 by 2005. Other similar centers around the world have a more than 3400 employees. Another center is expected to open in Munich, Germany in 2004.