AstraZeneca will invest $2.5bn in research and manufacturing in Beijing, as the pharmaceutical company tries to move past recent controversies including ditching plans for the expansion of a UK vaccine plant and the detentions of top executives in China.

The investment will be staggered over the next five years as part of a “strategic partnership” with the city’s authorities and also includes agreements with three local biotech companies.

Britain’s biggest drug maker said it hopes the deal will “advance early-stage research and clinical development and will be enabled by a new state-of-the-art AI and data science laboratory”.

The announcement was made six months after it emerged that eight current and former AstraZeneca employees had been detained by Chinese police as part of an investigation into possible breaches related to data privacy and importing unlicensed medications.

The following month, the company’s president in China, Leon Wang, was detained as part of a separate investigation and was said to be “cooperating with [the] Chinese authorities”.

The drugs group then found itself at the centre of a political debate over Labour’s growth agenda after it axed plans in February for the £450m expansion of its factory in the Liverpool suburb of Speke, citing factors “including the timing and reduction of the final offer” compared with a proposal by the previous, Conservative government.

The new investment in Beijing is part of a move by AstraZeneca to increase its presence in China. It has spent almost $10bn on 12 acquisitions in the country, including the Shanghai-based Gracell Biotechnologies, which develops cell therapies for cancer and autoimmune disease, for $1.2bn last year.

Pascal Soriot, the chief executive of AstraZeneca, said: “This $2.5bn investment reflects our belief in the world-class life sciences ecosystem in Beijing, the extensive opportunities that exist for collaboration and access to talent, and our continued commitment to China.”

He added that the group’s “sixth strategic R&D centre will partner with the cutting-edge biology and AI science in Beijing and be a critical part of our global efforts to bring innovative medicines to patients worldwide.”

AstraZeneca’s five existing centres include two in the US, in Boston and Gaithersburg, near Washington DC; as well a two further European centres, in Cambridge, England, and Gothenburg in Sweden. The Beijing site will be the second in China, with an existing facility in Shanghai.

AstraZeneca, which is the UK’s most valuable listed company, said the case concerning Wang involved suspected unpaid importation taxes of $900,000, which could lead to a fine of up to five times that amount if the company was found liable.

A decade ago, AstraZeneca’s UK rival, GSK, had to pay a fine of 3bn yuan (£297m) to the government in Beijing, after being found guilty of bribery by a Chinese court.