According to Huang Xiaoqing, president of China Mobile's Institute of Research, the company plans to establish a research and development center in Silicon Valley in the United States in 2009.

This will be the first time for China's telecom industry to release an overseas research and development plan since the recent restructuring and it is also China Mobile's first overseas research and development action. Huang says that for a long time, the major revenue of China Mobile has been contributed by its voice services, but now it needs some innovations and Silicon Valley has the best environment.

In the past, mobile and the Internet services were operated on two independent platforms. However, the merger of the two has pushed the need to have a unified mobile platform.

At present, China Mobile is actively contacting other operators to establish a jointly-managed mobile platform like Google's Android mobile phone operating system.