'The scale and depth of talent here plays a central role in core software product engineering for some of the biggest brands in tech.'
GlobalLogic, a US-based digital engineering services provider that is part of the Hitachi group, is ramping up its India operations - adding more centres and expanding its workforce from 15,000 to 20,000 by the end of 2026.
This could make India its largest and fastest-growing base globally (out of a total of 32,000 employees), even as artificial intelligence (AI) drives productivity gains, according to president and chief executive officer Srini Shankar, who took charge in February, and Piyush Jha, group vice-president and managing director for Asia-Pacific (Apac).
In an interview with Gulveen Aulakh/Business Standard - Shankar's first to Indian media - the executives said GlobalLogic was maintaining its pace to reach $5 billion in revenue by 2028.
While AI is enhancing productivity and accelerating software engineering, Shankar said "agentification" was opening new addressable markets and growth opportunities.
GlobalLogic builds software for ADAS in automotive, for med-tech devices like defibrillators, for network traffic routing, and is now training large language models (LLMs) for industry players.
What is India's contribution to these segments?
Shankar: Of our over 32,000 people globally, more than 15,000 are based in India, making the country a critical hub for GlobalLogic's operations.
The scale and depth of talent here plays a central role in core software product engineering for some of the biggest brands in tech.
For many clients, we embed AI into their offerings as they pivot towards agentic AI, a trend across software industry.
India is developing several AI accelerators, leading projects with Global Capability Centres (GCCs), building horizontal AI solutions for areas like HR, finance, legal, and procurement for clients and Hitachi's group of companies.
Building industry-specific applications, such as claims processing in insurance, or using agentic AI to transform billing operations in communications sector, India is a core driver of GlobalLogic's technology and product engineering leadership worldwide.
What does the growth path for the India market looks like over the next two to three years?
Jha: We're currently a little over 15,000 employees in India, with centres in Noida, Gurgaon, Nagpur, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
We've added Kochi through an acquisition and recently set up a centre in Mahabubnagar.
While Tier-I hubs like Noida and Bangalore remain our largest bases, we're steadily building Tier-2 centres to a scale of 500-1,000 people each.
By the end of next year, we expect to reach about 20,000 employees, close to 25 per cent growth, even after factoring in the productivity gains from AI adoption.
We continue to actively hire from various institutions, including Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs), enriching our talent base.
Would you look at new locations or add more people in existing ones?
Jha: We are certainly evaluating additional locations, especially as we see several GCCs emerging and many of them are eyeing Tier-II cities.
While some of these potential locations overlap with our existing hubs, others are entirely new, and our choices will depend on the industries we serve.
Back in 2023, India market was looking at $1 billion revenue in three years...
Shankar: We've maintained a healthy pace and have been growing steadily and solidly, though I can't comment on the exact numbers.
This momentum isn't driven by GCCs alone. The single-biggest opportunity over the next decade, and one that uniquely positions us versus large system integrators and software engineering peers, is digitisation of the industrial sector.
Today we are executing a significant number of projects out of India for Hitachi and its clients, spanning areas such as industrial metaverse, digital twins, computer vision-based applications, predictive maintenance, and enterprise asset management - classic industrial use cases that cut across multiple sub-segments.
For example, in the nuclear sector, we've built an industrial metaverse that enables remote operations, removing the need for humans to physically enter nuclear plants.
We're seeing many Indian companies, including major business houses, making long-term investments in semiconductors. Have you been able to win contracts in this space?
Shankar: We gained expertise in VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration), board circuit design, and ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) design.
The (Mobiveil) acquisition was a strategic move based on a market opportunity we identified at the time.
So, you have at least one contract in this area?
Shankar: Yes. But more importantly, we can deliver not just chip design but also the software that runs on it, creating a complete solution.
In fact, with several semiconductor and chip design companies around, we don't just work as their service provider, we also partner with them in go-to-market efforts.
There was a publicly stated target of achieving $5 billion (global) revenue by 2028.
Considering the rapid shift towards GCCs and Agentic AI, do you think you might reach that milestone sooner?
Shankar: It is not just about the number. I would not like to put a specific number. We are excited and focused on shaping the future.
While AI is bringing higher productivity and acceleration in software engineering, "agentification" is also creating entirely new addressable markets that didn't exist before.
All indications point to this being a substantial opportunity. (Agentification is the process of integration of software and hardware equipment already existing in the enterprise into a multi-agent system)
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
