Taipei, Sept. 14 (CNA) Wistron Corp. has broken ground on a NT$2.482 billion (US$80.36 million) LCD research and development facility at Kaohsiung's Cianjhen Technology Industrial Park that the company said could generate up to 7,000 new jobs.
At a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday, the Taipei-headquartered contract electronics manufacturer said the facility would be involved in researching and developing automotive, medical, and industrial LCM (liquid crystal module or LCD module) products.
In addition, Wistron said it would pursue the creation of new Internet of Things technology and value-added services at the site.
Wistron said the project would see the firm construct one employee dormitory and two office buildings at the industrial park.
Work on the project also includes demolishing three 50-year-old employee dormitory buildings spread out over 1.5 hectares, according to the company.
In the first stage of the three-phase project, Wistron will increase land use by building a replacement dormitory on land adjacent to the old employee living quarters set to be demolished, according to the company.
In the second stage, one of the old dormitory buildings will be torn down and replaced with a new R&D office building.
In the third stage, the two remaining old dormitories will be torn down and replaced with R&D office space for 2,400 high-end hardware and software R&D professionals, according to Wistron.
Wistron said it expected to complete construction in the first quarter of 2030, with the finished buildings occupying around 58,000 square meters of floor areas.
Wistron has invested more than NT$13 billion in the southern port city over the past two years, according to the firm.
The company added that the new investment project could generate up to NT$55 billion and create 7,000 jobs in Kaohsiung.
The project is part of a 10-year regeneration project initiated by the Kaohsiung branch office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Export Processing Zone Administration.
(By Cheng Hung-ta, Tsai Meng-yu and Evelyn Kao)