US-based IT firm VMware to invest $2 bn in India in 5 years to expand ops

US-based IT company VMware on Wednesday announced plans to invest $2 billion in India over the next five years to expand operations and workforce.

The company will use the investment to expand offices in Bangalore and Pune as well as increase workforce and capital expenditure for growing sales operations and funding research and development in India, a top company official said.

"We are now over 5,000 people in India. It has been growing faster than the company has been growing. India is hub for us and our innovation engine ... we will be investing over $2 billion in India over next five years," VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said.

VMware deals in virtualisation technology which reduced need of building or deploying physical infrastructure required for businesses. It even works on technology that reduces need of several electronic hardware like desktop CPUs, mobile antennas etc deployed for technical operation of companies.

"India is a key cornerstone of our overall global investment strategy, providing outstanding engineering talent for our global R&D operations that are helping to drive innovation across our entire product portfolio," Gelsinger said.

VMware India Vice President & Managing Director Arun Parameswaran said that the company's initiatives in the country also support Indian government policies, such as Digital India.

"India has a deep pool of talented, creative people that can help fuel our innovation now and in the future," Parameswaran said.

Over the past 13 years, VMware's operations across research and development, sales and marketing as well as business support services have expanded in India, with more than 5,000 employees today supporting its business locally and globally.

VMware's primary India sites include Bangalore, Pune and Chennai.

The company also announced Project Taara in collaboration with Women Who Code to train 15,000 women who leave their job in between for personal reason specially raising kids and hesitate in returning to their job because of skill gap created during their off.

"VMware does lot of training program for corporates and will use those program for training women under Project Taara. We have organisations like Bharti Airtel and Cognizant who will support this program in sharing their knowledge and identifying suitable women candidates," VMware Senior Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific and Japan, Duncan Hewett said.

According to estimates by VMWare, nearly 50 per cent of women in Indian IT sector move out of core engineering roles after eight years, with the biggest drop-off after the first five years as they often take a break to start families and do not return to the workforce.

Increasing women's labour force participation is therefore essential for the growth of India's IT industry, which is expected to drive digital transformation and add an estimated USS 154 billion to the country's GDP by 2021, Hewett said.