Join WhatsApp Channel
India now hosts nearly half of the world’s Global Capability Centers (GCCs) and has emerged as the second-largest base of enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) talent globally, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V. Anantha Nageswaran said on Thursday, highlighting the country’s transformation from a low-cost outsourcing destination into a strategic innovation hub for multinational corporations.
Addressing the CII GCC Business Summit 2026, Nageswaran said India’s GCC ecosystem has evolved significantly over the past two decades, with centers now playing a central role in product development, engineering, research, analytics and enterprise technology rather than merely providing back-office support.
“Two decades ago, we had a handful of back offices. Today, it is more than 2,000 such centers, and they employ more than 2 million professionals,” he said.
The CEA said employment in the sector is steadily moving towards 2.3 million, while annual revenues have already crossed $60 billion and are on track to reach $100 billion. GCCs currently contribute nearly 2 per cent to India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and account for a growing share of new office space developed across the country’s major cities.
“On the latest count, India now hosts around half of the world’s GCCs. No other country comes close,” he said.
A Global Capability Centre is an offshore unit established by a multinational corporation to manage critical functions such as technology, research, engineering, analytics and shared services in-house instead of outsourcing them to third-party vendors.
Highlighting the sector’s growing sophistication, Nageswaran said Indian GCCs today drive mission-critical operations across industries. Global banks run risk systems and trading platforms from Mumbai and Bengaluru, automobile manufacturers design vehicles and embedded systems from Chennai and Pune, semiconductor companies undertake chip design in India, pharmaceutical firms manage clinical analytics, and consumer companies develop digital products from the country.
Citing Merck as an example, the CEA said the German science and technology company recently inaugurated an integrated campus in Bengaluru, bringing together around 3,300 professionals working across data, artificial intelligence and enterprise technology.
According to Nageswaran, the Bengaluru facility has become Merck’s largest concentration of digital capabilities globally, while India has emerged as the company’s fourth-largest workforce hub after Germany, the United States and China.
The CEA said AI capabilities within India’s GCC ecosystem have expanded rapidly, with more than 1,200 centers now actively engaged in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“India has become the second-largest base of enterprise AI talent in the world. The intellectual property created in these centers is real. The patents are filed here, the products are shipped from here, and global roles are increasingly held by people sitting here,” he said, adding that in many multinational companies, Indian GCCs have evolved from support functions to becoming the core of global operations.
Speaking about the impact of AI, Nageswaran said the technology should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a disruption.
“Artificial intelligence does not build, deploy, or govern itself. Someone has to design these systems. Someone has to train them, test them, correct them, and hold them to account. Someone has to decide where they should be used and where they must not be used—and a large and growing share of this kind of work is being done in India,” he said.
Calling for a proactive approach, the CEA said India must position itself as a creator of AI-led innovation rather than merely adapting to technological change.
“A country that treats AI as a tool will shape it instead. India must be in the second group, not passive recipients of what the technology does to us, but active authors of what we do with it,” he said.
Related posts:
India’s Chief Economic Advisor Calls for Agile Fiscal Policy Amid Global Shocks at IMF-World Bank Meetings
US India Business Council Signs MOU with Government of Telangana
Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Fee May Push Tech Talent, Innovation Back to India
India Confronts ‘Profit-First’ Drug Pricing as Multinational Pharma Firms Accused of Exploiting Regulatory Gaps
