Japan’s NTT offering $1 million to lure researchers

Telecom giant NTT Group is offering record pay to hire top scientists as it looks to match some of the basic research prowess of global powerhouses including Alphabet Inc and Apple Inc.

The former Japanese telephone monopoly set annual salaries of as much as $1 million for researchers at its Palo Alto, California, labs, said Kazuhiro Gomi, president of the company’s research arm. That’s more than the company pays its chief executive officer and 41-year veteran Jun Sawada, and a rare step for a traditional Japanese company like NTT.

The increased investment in basic science comes as NTT is regrouping its businesses to focus more on cloud computing services and data centres amid a dimming outlook for profit from its mainstay mobile phone carrier.