US-based Cognizant Technology Services, one of the fastest growing IT services companies, recently said that it will be setting up a development centre in China before the end of 2003.

Cognizant also categorically said that it would continue to grow faster than its Indian competitors next year.

Kumar Mahadeva, Chairman & CEO announced Cognizant's plans. "We will be starting a center in China this year, before the end of the calendar year. We don't expect it to be a large-volume location for sometime, because there are significant challenges. Certainly we would get started this year," he said.

Mahadeva declined to give out details of the China development centre or where it would be located, but indicated that the move was to support the IT requirements of an existing client of the company. Mahadeva said that with Cognizant growing over 60 per cent compared to the year ago quarter and 12 per cent sequentially, it was growing significantly faster than competitors like Infosys and Wipro.

"Demand is very strong and it has strengthened even further in the last couple of quarters: This is a result of the fact that we are seeing many more large companies embracing the offshore model and are pushing very aggressively to move work offshore," he said. "At this point the demand really is looking incredibly strong. We did see a good pick up and we grew extremely fast in the second and third quarters of this calendar year as clients gave us new work that we didn't anticipate. "