Apple appears to making up for lost time in China. Its former CEO Steve Jobs never set foot in China, but now the company he founded is boosting spend in the Middle Kingdom under CEO Tim Cook.

Apple China announced that following Beijing and Shenzhen, Apple will launch new research and development centers in Shanghai and Suzhou. According to a report published by Apple, the company has promised to invest over CNY3.5 billion into R&D centers in China.

Apple's Chinese R&D centers aim to train technical experts in Apple's supply chain. As a part of Apple's sustainable development and investment in China, the company has implemented a series of cooperation projects with Chinese universities, including an internship project, to help cultivate the next-generation of entrepreneurs and genius bar drones.

Meanwhile, Apple's growing engineer and operation teams in China will focus on cooperating with more local technical partners to develop advanced technologies and services for customers in China and around the world.

Dan Riccio, Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering, said that by expanding R&D centers in China, they are looking forward to collaborating with more local partners and academic institutions. China has outstanding talent and positive entrepreneurial spirit. They are honored to cooperate with developers and suppliers in the country to make their business flourish in this marketplace.

Apple's R&D centers in those four Chinese cities will be opened later this year.