San Jose, May 15 (IANS): Video meet app Zoom on Thursday announced to open two new research and development centres in the US, one in the greater Phoenix (Arizona) and the other in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania).

Zoom said it will immediately begin recruiting software engineering talent in these geographies.

Employees will work from home until the offices are built and COVID-19-related isolation has abated, expected for fall 2020.

"We plan to hire up to 500 software engineers between these two cities in the next few years, drawing largely on recent graduates of the many local universities," said Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan.

"We look forward to expanding our team and seeing what we accomplish together as we continue to build our world-leading video communications platform with best-in-class reliability, scalability, privacy, and security," he added.

While the company has not finalized the office locations, Zoom is looking for space near Arizona State University and Carnegie Mellon University, both of which have exceptional engineering programmes.

These two centres will add to Zoom's existing R&D and support Zoom's engineering leadership, which is based at its San Jose, California headquarters.

"Zoom's expansion into the Phoenix market reflects the success of our efforts to grow and support a new economy for Arizona that is based on technology and innovation," said Michael M. Crow, President of Arizona State University.

"We are so thrilled that Zoom is planning to establish a research and development center in Pittsburgh, a world-leading hub for engineering, computer science, and artificial intelligence," added Farnam Jahanian, President of Carnegie Mellon University.