The Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has announced a €6m investment for Lero - the Science Foundation Ireland research centre for software.

A four-year research programme aimed at improving the reliability of software applications will begin in early 2020.

The investment funding is in joint cooperation with Huawei's Research Centre in Ireland and Sweden.

The announcement was made at Lero's headquarters at the University of Limerick (UL).

Lero researchers from UL, Trinity College Dublin, NUI Galway and Dublin City University will take part in the research programme.

In August, Huawei announced it would invest €70m in Irish research and development over the coming three years.

Jijay Shen, the CEO of Huawei Ireland, said: "We consistently work with our key stakeholders to build positive relationships.

"Lero is a world-leading software research centre with expertise second to none in several advanced software engineering topics.

"We are delighted to begin working with them on this research programme."

Lero director Professor Brian Fitzgerald said: "Lero is working on implementing advanced software engineering techniques across a range of topics.

"This research programme brings together top software researchers from around Ireland to work with Huawei on a series of projects aimed at making software more efficient and reliable."

"There has been a dramatic increase in both the volume and complexity of the software that needs to be produced globally.

"This project will help industry generate the best possible software over the four years of the strategic research partnership."

It is expected that the four-year alliance will result in a number of research projects on advanced software engineering topics, leading to dedicated knowledge transfer workshops and publications in major journals.

Huawei has been in Ireland since 2004, with its business now serving over 2.5 million people and employing over 500 directly and indirectly here.

It also works with a number of Irish third-level institutions, including Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, University of Limerick, University College Dublin, and University College Cork.

Last August, Huawei overtook Apple in global smartphone sales for the first time.