A view of Tel Aviv, Israel. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

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.

“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.