GCCs upending India's technology landscape: Economic Survey 2025

Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are altering India’s technology landscape as they evolve into strategic hubs within the country’s corporate ecosystem, the Economic Survey Report 2025 said.

 

The number of GCCs in India has increased exponentially to more than 1,700 in FY24, up from 1,430 in FY19. Companies across various verticals, including banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), retail, healthcare, aerospace, manufacturing, and automotive, have rushed to set up their technology centres in India due to the availability of a highly skilled workforce.

 

Over the last five years, the setup rate of engineering research & development (ER&D) GCCs has grown 1.3 times faster than the overall GCC setup, highlighting a continued shift towards high-value-added work.

 

“India’s GCCs are evolving from support hubs to engines of global innovation and transformation—even leading global hubs for many large corporates,” said Jaspreet Singh, partner at Grant Thornton Bharat.

 

GCCs in India employ about 1.9 million people, still less than IT services companies, but growing at a faster rate than the latter. This growth is supported by a vast talent pool, which accounts for 28 per cent of the global science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce and 23 per cent of the global software engineering talent.

 

This prompted many companies to deploy their global leaders to work out of India, enabling closer collaboration with their US and European headquarters. The Economic Survey added that such global roles within GCCs are expected to grow beyond 30,000 by 2030, up from 6,500 now, supported by robust training programmes to develop leadership.

 

“The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and the establishment of AI centres of excellence further enhance the GCC landscape by leveraging India’s strong middle-management talent,” the report noted.