Hindalco has two R&D centres, Belgaum Research and Development Centre (BRDC) located at Belgaum in Karnataka and Taloja Research and Development Centre (TRDC) at Taloja in Maharashtra. BRDC, earlier known as Smelter Chemicals R&D Centre, is operating in the field of alumina while TRDC, previously known as Oil and Lube Laboratory, is operating in the field of oil and lube and aluminium related metallurgical services. Both these R&D centres were established in March 1979 and have been engaged in developmental work and analytical services for the last 26 years. These R&D centres offer analytical services and customised product applications that fine-tune manufacturing operations and improve environmental systems and processes.

In 2002, Hindalco received the National Award for R&D efforts in processing industries by the Government of India's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) for technical work done by the two centres and the R&D departments at Belur rolling and Alupuram extrusion plants. Both BRDC and TRDC are ISO 9001:2000 certified, and TRDC has also been accredited in accordance with the standard ISO/IES 17025:1999 by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).

BRDC and TRDC will expand their activities in the coming years to include environment monitoring in their scope.