In what could be a big news for India's own Silicon Valley Bengaluru, Japanese auto giant Toyota could be looking at the city as part of its big India plan. Toyota Motor Corporation is planning to establish its first research and development (R&D) center in India.

Through its local unit, the Japanese car maker is looking to set up its first R&D centre in India. Toyota Kirloskar Motor earlier in January announced that it has recorded its highest-ever calendar year sales in 2024, selling a total of 3,26,329 units, marking a 40 per cent growth.

Now, it has emerged that the car company is looking to set up its first India R&D centre in Namma Bengaluru, according to a report in Bloomberg. Toyota Motor Corp’s new R&D facility will begin operations with a team of about 200 people in Bengaluru, near Toyota Kirloskar Motor’s existing factory in Bidadi.

By the year 2027, the Japanese giant is aiming to scale up its team by 5 times to around 1000 engineers.

Worth mentioning here is that the development comes after Toyota last year reorganised India to be the hub of its operations across the Middle East, East Asia and Oceania region, the Bloomberg report added. Further, Toyota has also informed about a series of investments to establish India as a global hub for clean and green technologies.

As part of its plans to setup the R&D centre in Bengaluru, Toyota is learnt to closely studying the R&D operations of Suzuki’s Indian unit in Rohtak. The unit is one of the country’s largest auto engineering hubs with around 3,000 engineers, the report added.

Bengaluru R&D centre by Toyota will be its third such establishment in the Asia-Pacific region outside Japan. Earlier, it had made similar investments in China and Thailand.