The facility in India will be the first of its kind set up by the euro 14.4-billion French multinational in partnership with a global tech firm like Infosys to develop products and solutions for its global power plants, including in Asia and India.

Alstom will invest $39 million (euro 31 million) in the centre over the next three years, while Infosys will provide infrastructure and about 300 software engineers, including 60 engineers in the first year of operations.

"The centre will focus on high-end engineering services such as product development, engineering simulation, control engineering and product lifecycle management," Alstom Power president Philippe Joubert told reporters at a news conference in the Infosys campus.

Though Alstom has 18 research and development centres worldwide, the joint centre with Infosys will emerge as the biggest facility in the coming years, with the company planning to invest 20 percent of its total annual research budget of euro 600 million in India.

Commenting on the new partnership, Infosys CEO Nandan M. Nilekani said with 50-70 percent of the cost of any product being decided at the design stage, India was increasingly being looked at as a global engineering hub.

"Our partnership with Alstom, a world leader in turbine technology, will enable us to create next generation solutions for the power sector. The uniqueness of the relationship lies in our ability to learn their critical quality and technical requirements and deliver value," Nilekani said.

"This is a great opportunity for Alstom to strengthen its presence in India by using the skills and talents offered by Infosys. Together, we will be able to make our products more focused on the needs of the Indian market," Joubert said.

The centre will provide Alstom a competitive edge by enabling rapid design and deployment, thereby reducing time-to-market; improve life and efficiency of mechanical components, reducing energy costs; improve performance and cost-effectiveness by using new materials and reduce environmental impact and atmospheric emission of products.

With a presence in India over the last 95 years in the energy business, Alstom employs about 2,700 people at nine locations, including Durgapur, Shahbad, Kolkata, Chennai and Vadodara.

Its revenue from India was euro 150 million in 2004.

Alstom supplies critical electrical equipment, including boilers, hydro turbines and generators and pollution control equipment for power plants. In the transport sector, it provides railway equipment and technology solutions.

"By setting up the centre, we are not only increasing our presence in India, but extending our relationship with a vendor like Infosys into high-end partnership. With the power sector expanding in India and Asia, the region is emerging as an important market for us," Joubert said.

The partnership envisages that Infosys will deploy its engineers to Alstom centres for training and orientation to its tools, methodologies and practices.

"Infosys bring to the table its experience in the product design and engineering space, with a unique combination of mechanical, electronics and engineering process capabilities," Nilekani said.

Infosys has been Alstom's vendor in its rail transport business since 2000, providing independent verification and validation of railway signalling software.

In the power sector, the IT bellwether developed software for power plant system control.