Jaipur, Sep 9 (IANS): Hero MotoCorp Ltd (HMCL), one of the world's largest two-wheeler manufacturers, Monday commenced construction of its Rs.450 crore centre of global innovation and research & design (R&D)' at Kukas near here.

Hero MotoCorp managing director and CEO Pawan Munjal laid the foundation stone of the centre here in the presence of the company's global technology partners -Erik Buell of Erik Buell Racing (EBR), US; Alberto Strazzari of Engines Engineering, Italy and Markus Feichtner of AVL, Austria.

"With Hero Centre of Global Innovation and R&D, Kukas is going to be on the global map with a truly international centre of excellence - not just in terms of its design, development, testing and validation facilities, but also in terms of the diversified pool of human talent from all over the world.

"Once operational, this centre will bring about game-changing breakthrough technologies with the power of its intellectual creativity and innovations," said Munjal at the occasion, according to a company statement.

The centre plans to commence operations by first quarter of 2015, he said.

In just over two years since commencing its solo journey, Hero MotoCorp has significantly scaled up its in-house R&D capabilities with over 400 highly-skilled engineers working on future product line-up.

The company's current R&D centres, located at the Gurgaon and Dharuhera factories, will shift to Kukas - thus creating a nucleus for the key technological functions.