Israel was chosen by French network-equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent as the site for a new Bell Labs research center, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

Bell Labs is known as the Nobel-prize-winning group which discovered cell phone technology, among other inventions.

Alcatel-Lucent also runs the original Bell Labs, in Murray Hill, New Jersey, as well as research sites worldwide including facilities in Villarceaux, France; Antwerp, Belgium and Shanghai.

The Israeli Bell Labs center will be based in Kfar Saba, outside Tel Aviv, where Alcatel-Lucent already has a cloud-technology facility. Israel’s telecoms and internet hub is the world’s second-best start-up area behind Silicon Valley, according San Francisco-based Compass Inc., which collects data on technology companies, Bloomberg said.

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“We know that great new discoveries and innovations in ‘cloud networking’ will emerge from our new Tel Aviv office,” Bell Labs President and Alcatel-Lucent Chief Technology Officer Marcus Weldon said.

Alcatel-Lucent Chief Executive Officer Michel Combes said the research facility in Israel “will contribute tremendously to Alcatel-Lucent playing a shaping role in the industry.”

Bloomberg said Combes, who took over last year, is focusing on innovation and fast-growing technologies, including cloud-based architectures, to turn around the company after years of losses following the 2006 merger of Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc.