Lenovo's new in-house facility in Ullo, in the outskirts of Hungary's capital, is "up and running," according to Hungarian authorities and production is expected to start "very soon." 

The new factory will manufacture products across Lenovo's portfolio including desktop computers, workstations and data center products for customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Completing construction of the factory, which was first announced by the Hungarian authorities in September 2020, was "something exceptional" amid the COVID-19 pandemic, said Anita Lukacs, general manager for Lenovo Hungary.

"We had a short 10 months to make the project complete because our deadline was May 2021," she said. With the support of the Hungarian government, which facilitated and authorized the movement of experts from the U.S. and China, the work was completed last week.

It was a two-year process before Hungary was selected as the most attractive destination by the Chinese tech giant.

Competition for Chinese investment is fierce among Eastern European countries and the $26.3 million investment from Lenovo is considered by the Hungarian government a great achievement for the country.

At least 1,000 new jobs are expected to be created in the first two years of the factory's operations, a result that Lukacs expects to be reached sooner.

"People will come to this factory out of Budapest itself and some other towns surrounding the area," she said, talking about how the factory will boost the country's overall economy.

"It will not only be jobs in our factory, we will have many contracts with local vendors who will supply parts that we do not necessarily need to import," she explained. 

According to Lukacs, the factory is "up and running" and production is expected to start very soon, with the first units ideally starting to ship in June.