Razer, the world’s leading high-end precision gaming brand, announced the opening of an office in Taiwan, starting with the acquisition of a 20-man systems design team in Taiwan. Razer aims to expand the new Taiwan office to a 100-man team by 2012.

The Taiwan office is the third design center for Razer, following design centers in San Francisco and Singapore. Razer also previously established a technology research center in Austin, Texas earlier this year. The new Razer Taiwan team will be made up of some of the top design engineers and
programmers that specialize in systems and internal design to complement the elite design team in San Francisco that was responsible for conceptualising the Razer Switchblade. Members of the new Razer Taiwan team have previously worked on projects such as Microsoft’s Origami, Intel’s UrbanMax concept device and some of the latest innovations in the PC systems space.

“Taiwan is a key market for us globally and we see immense growth potential here. This office will provide us a base to expand our business globally while providing boundless opportunities for us to expand our world-class design teams from the deep talent pool available here,” said Min-Liang Tan, CEO and Creative Director, Razer. “We pride ourselves on attracting some of the top talent in the industry and this team will enable us to continue to stay ahead of the rest of the field.”

This follows Razer’s acquisition of the key members of the OQO engineering team based in the US in 2008, the same engineering team that pioneered ultra-mobile computers globally. Unlike many other global PC companies who have, in recent years, outsourced their design capabilities to offshore manufacturers, Razer has bucked the trend by growing in-house R&D capabilities focused specifically on the design and development of complete systems. With the acquisition of the Razer Taiwan team, Razer now has one of the world’s largest internal R&D and design teams that specializes in complete systems and ultra-mobile computing design. The operations in Taiwan will commence in September 2011, with expansion plans already in the works to expand the office to over 100 employees by 2012.