German SAP to found R&D hub in Istanbul

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım speaks at an SAP Labs event.

Germany-based business software maker SAP announced that it will open its second innovation base in Istanbul with a 20 million-euro investment, which will be the first research and development center established by a global software company in Turkey.

The company announced the decision to found a center aimed at designing new software products for the global market in Istanbul during a ceremony held July 23 in Istanbul, attended by Turkish Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım, top SAP executives and prominent IT sector figures.

SAP Labs Innovation Center Turkey is the first research and development hub founded by a global software giant in the country, but it is SAP’s 15th lab and second innovation center.

The software giant plans to host researchers who will design products not only for Turkish customers, but to be sold in global markets as well. Giving details about the center, SAP Turkey managing director Zeynep Keskin said it was set to be opened in the last months of this year at Teknopark Istanbul and aimed to employ 300 researchers and students.

Teknopark Istanbul, which is set to be the largest technology park in Turkey and one of the largest in Europe, looks to house hundreds of companies, universities and technology institutions.

“The park is expected to generate $10 billion of annual income in 10 years after it becomes fully operational,” Sedat Güldoğan, deputy undersecretary of the Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry said during the ceremony.

He said SAP and 79 other companies, including eight universities, would be starting to work on their spaces in the technopark by next month, within the first phase of the center. The 950,000-square-meter indoor space will accommodate some 30,000 personnel engaged in research and development projects for strategic sectors including defense, ICT, electronics, energy, biotechnology, healthcare, aviation and aerospace, he said, adding that SAP was likely to construct an additional building of its own within the park.

Yıldırım said it was not a coincidence that Istanbul was attracting technology firms’ investments as it had been consolidating its position as a regional hub as proven by the double-digit growth of the aviation sector.

In the latest move, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) had said in April that it would open an Internet management center in Istanbul. Information Technologies Board (BTK) head Tayfun Acerer said establishment of SAP Labs in Turkey “indicates that the harvest time in the information technology sector has arrived,” when it is considered with other recent technology investments.