Lee, former vice-president with the US software giant Microsoft, said yesterday in Beijing, “We have a lot of expectations for our Chinese operations and the Chinese market.”

Speaking after he received permission to work for the search engine in China, he said that Google’s development centre in China will be established very soon.

Google has been deciding where to put the centre between Beijing and Shanghai. Lee said his company will make a decision soon.

The search giant plans to build a world-class centre in China, which will not only work on the localization of its products and services, but also on cutting-edge technologies for its global operations.

The top Chinese scientist at Google said his job is to hire at least 50 college graduates by the end of this year, as the job-hunting season for graduate students starts this month.

“We are here not to steal talent from other companies, but train local people,” he said.

Steal me! Steal me!

Microsoft Research Asia, which was founded by Lee in 1998 in Beijing, also said yesterday it would aim to recruit 100 to 150 graduates this year.

Although the Chinese scientist received permission to work for Google from a US local court, he was not allowed to work on any projects similar to ones he had worked on at Microsoft.