Yahoo!, the $6 billion Internet major, is in the process of kicking off its research lab in Bangalore. This will be Yahoo's seventh site globally after four centres in the US and one each in Barcelona and Chile.

Prabhakar Raghavan, head, Yahoo! Research in Bangalore, said: "We have initiated the process of setting up our lab in Bangalore, and have started hiring scientists for the unit. However, the centre will start its operations only after we acquire a critical mass of people."

Yahoo! already runs a research and development centre in Bangalore with around 700 personnel. The centre, other than developers, employs researchers, who are currently working on applied research.

The new centre will look at hiring senior mentors and partners for the existing researchers.

Raghavan said: "The researchers that we currently have are extremely talented and work on state-of-the-art technologies. The scientists, we are looking to hire, are the ones who can define start-of-the-art next generation technologies."

According to the firm, the mission of its research wing is to develop a world-class research base globally, that will deliver next generation of businesses for the company.

"Our scientists focus on data-driven analysis, high-quality search, algorithms and economic models. Yahoo! manages many of the largest and richest data repositories in the world, and our researchers mine insights from these giant collections, individually and collectively, maintaining the privacy of our users while setting new standards for user value," said Raghavan.

He further added: "The Internet has become a utility. We are focussing on how to use this utility to enhance human to human communication. We are trying to understand various behavioural patterns of our half a billion users and how we can make their lives simple as they go about their day-to-day lives."

To drive this initiative, Yahoo! is hiring not only computer scientists, but also scientists in sociology, economics and other related fields, he added.