BANGALORE, India -- IBM will invest US$6 billion in its operations in India over the next three years, Chairman and CEO Samuel Palmisano told about 10,000 of the company's employees here last week.

The planned investment is three times the amount that IBM spent in the country over the past three years, according to Shanker Annaswamy, managing director of IBM India. He said the additional money will be used to expand IBM's workforce throughout India and to fund several projects, including an upgrade of a lab in Bangalore that develops so-called high-performance on-demand technology offerings.

IBM also plans to set up a telecommunications research center at its Delhi research facility, according to Annaswamy.

The company's Indian operations, which have about 43,000 employees now, are already its largest outside the U.S. The expansion plans are part of a strategy to make "significant investments" in emerging markets, such as India, China and Brazil, that offer a growing potential customer base and vast pools of qualified workers, said Michael Cannon-Brookes, IBM's vice president of business development in India and China.

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