Beijing's Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park, dubbed "China's Silicon Valley," will be turned into a world-class research and development (R&D) center in about a decade, a local official announced on Thursday.

Zhongguancun, home to a large number of high-tech companies and research institutions, will become a world-class R&D area for chip design, Internet applications, mobile telecommunications, digital technology and bio-medicine, Zhou Liangluo, head of the Haidian District government, told an R&D headquarters forum at the on-going seventh Zhongguancun Computer Festival.

To reach these goals, local government will work hard to provide a sound environment for high-tech firms and research institutions and will implement preferential policies for investment and talent recruitment.

Initial statistics show that Zhongguancun currently has more than 500 R&D centers, over 40 of which were set up by multinational corporations, such as Microsoft, Lucent, IBM, Oracle and Siemens.

Microsoft has set up two R&D centers in Zhongguancun, one for basic research and another for Microsoft products' research and development.