Zürich-based power and automation conglomerate ABB appointed Prith Banerjee as it new CTO. Banerjee will be leaving his current job as senior VP of research and director of HP labs to join ABB at its offices in Switzerland.

ABB CEO Joe Hogan said the new CTO was a creative and entrepreneurial researcher and an experienced executive. “He is well placed to help ABB build on its heritage of technology innovation and leadership,” he said.

Banerjee will start in his new role midyear in 2012, according to ABB. He will replace Peter Terwiesch, who has been appointed to lead ABB’s business in Germany and manage its activities in the Central Europe region.

Before joining HP, Banerjee had an extensive academic career as professor of electrical engineering and computer science and dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He has also held senior positions at Urbana-Campaign and at the Northwestern University in the US.

ABB is a major vendor of data center solutions and has recently expanded its presence in the market by acquiring the US electrical-infrastructure vendor Thomas & Betts for about US$3.9bn in January. Thomas & Betts’ data center products include digital static transfer switches, power-distribution gear and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems.

In February, the Swiss company also announced a plan to establish a data center solutions hub in Singapore, which will focus on selling its Decathlon data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software suite in the Singapore market.