“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Check your windows. Is it Dubai or what? Nah, it’s better. Welcome to the city where coding is the second language to all software engineers and professionals…” says a viral video currently doing the rounds on social media.
“If I showed you this, if I walked through here and I showed you that view, you’d probably say Singapore, Tokyo. I mean look at these. There are all the tech companies…” says another reel featuring a foreigner raving about an Indian city’s IT hub.
About a decade ago, if you asked which city they are all talking about, the answer would, unarguably, have been India’s Silicon Valley – Bengaluru.
Not anymore. Unbearable traffic, expensive commercial and residential real estate are all pushing companies and people to a city 650 km away – Hyderabad.
It’s a city that has been ranked as India’s most liveable city for seven consecutive years by Mercer, and has visitors going gaga over its gleaming infrastructure.
Be it heads of fast food giant McDonald’s or global investment firm Vanguard, biopharma biggies Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Sanofi or even Marriott, they can’t stop raving about Hyderabad.
“Hyderabad was an obvious choice for us because of its diverse talent pool, quality of living, an ecosystem of tech expertise and innovation mindset, and the friendly policies of the Telangana state govt,” Vanguard CEO Salim Ramji said when he recently flew into Hyderabad to check out their upcoming GCC. It is tipped to start with 50,000 sq ft and grow to about 2.5 lakh sq ft, housing about 2,300 techies over three to four years.
Hyderabad also grabbed a big bite of McDonald’s investment, a 2 lakh sq ft GCC housing 2,000 people by 2027, from right under the nose of compet ing cities such as Bengaluru thanks to its quality talent, superior infrastructure, and quality of living, as its chairman & CEO Chris Kempczinski said on a recent visit.
Amgen CEO Robert A Bradway, who also recently visited the city to inaugurate their new GCC at an initial investment of $200 million, said: “Hyderabad has emerged as a vital hub for tech innovation thanks to its thriving ecosystem of IT companies, startups and research institutions. And now a growing number of global players in technology, biotechnology, pharmaceutical industry are here as well.”
Fresh wave
This new wave of GCCs comes on the back of the humongous campuses built by American tech giants Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta that already house their largest facilities outside the US here.
“Hyderabad has probably been the fastest growing GCC destination in the last 12-18 months. 25-30% of new GCCs coming into India in this period have come up in Hyderabad. There is a lot going on that’s contributing to this rise – a solid talent pool, homegrown and those who have migrated here, a good concentration of fintech, retail, aviation and healthcare companies that have brought more companies here, good governance and academia,” said Vikram Ahuja, co-founder of ANSR, a company that helps establish GCCs.
“The other thing that’s also happening is Bengaluru has a lot of challenges – saturation from the real estate and infrastructure point of view,” Ahuja added.
Former Nasscom VP and independent tech advisor KS Viswanathan says Hyderabad has moved up the GCC metrics in the global market because of the kind of brand names it has attracted, the kind of talent pool it has generated and attracted, and the kind of good infrastructure and large real estate capacity it has built that offers space at about 10% lower costs than Bengaluru.
Building next-gen IP
Karthik Padmanabhan, managing partner at consultancy Zinnov, said Hyderabad is today home to over 370 GCCs, including a thriving cluster of more than 100 midmarket centres. The city, he said, now accounts for nearly 13% of India’s digital talent – the fastest year-on-year growth across any metro, and a staggering 55% of its GCC workforce is concentrated in high-value verticals like software & internet, BFSI, and semiconductors.
He said what sets Hyderabad apart is not just volume, but the velocity and vibrancy of transformation. “Companies like Qualcomm, Novartis, Microsoft, AMD, and Uber aren’t just running operations here — they are building next-gen IP, leading global engineering mandates, and even hosting global leadership from their Hyderabad bases. This is where digital products are being imagined, prototyped, and launched for global markets,” he said.
EY’s financial services GCC consulting leader Manoj Marwah said Hyderabad has taken the concept of city-as-a-service, just like you have SaaS, with proactive governance. “Right from police to real estate to municipal corporation, I don’t think there is any other city where access to government is available digitally and you have commitment from top down. The legacy of Chandrababu Naidu, who set up Cyberabad, has been carried on by successive governments,” he said.
“If I showed you this, if I walked through here and I showed you that view, you’d probably say Singapore, Tokyo. I mean look at these. There are all the tech companies…” says another reel featuring a foreigner raving about an Indian city’s IT hub.
About a decade ago, if you asked which city they are all talking about, the answer would, unarguably, have been India’s Silicon Valley – Bengaluru.
Not anymore. Unbearable traffic, expensive commercial and residential real estate are all pushing companies and people to a city 650 km away – Hyderabad.
It’s a city that has been ranked as India’s most liveable city for seven consecutive years by Mercer, and has visitors going gaga over its gleaming infrastructure.
Be it heads of fast food giant McDonald’s or global investment firm Vanguard, biopharma biggies Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Sanofi or even Marriott, they can’t stop raving about Hyderabad.
“Hyderabad was an obvious choice for us because of its diverse talent pool, quality of living, an ecosystem of tech expertise and innovation mindset, and the friendly policies of the Telangana state govt,” Vanguard CEO Salim Ramji said when he recently flew into Hyderabad to check out their upcoming GCC. It is tipped to start with 50,000 sq ft and grow to about 2.5 lakh sq ft, housing about 2,300 techies over three to four years.
Hyderabad also grabbed a big bite of McDonald’s investment, a 2 lakh sq ft GCC housing 2,000 people by 2027, from right under the nose of compet ing cities such as Bengaluru thanks to its quality talent, superior infrastructure, and quality of living, as its chairman & CEO Chris Kempczinski said on a recent visit.
Amgen CEO Robert A Bradway, who also recently visited the city to inaugurate their new GCC at an initial investment of $200 million, said: “Hyderabad has emerged as a vital hub for tech innovation thanks to its thriving ecosystem of IT companies, startups and research institutions. And now a growing number of global players in technology, biotechnology, pharmaceutical industry are here as well.”
Fresh wave
This new wave of GCCs comes on the back of the humongous campuses built by American tech giants Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta that already house their largest facilities outside the US here.
“Hyderabad has probably been the fastest growing GCC destination in the last 12-18 months. 25-30% of new GCCs coming into India in this period have come up in Hyderabad. There is a lot going on that’s contributing to this rise – a solid talent pool, homegrown and those who have migrated here, a good concentration of fintech, retail, aviation and healthcare companies that have brought more companies here, good governance and academia,” said Vikram Ahuja, co-founder of ANSR, a company that helps establish GCCs.
“The other thing that’s also happening is Bengaluru has a lot of challenges – saturation from the real estate and infrastructure point of view,” Ahuja added.
Former Nasscom VP and independent tech advisor KS Viswanathan says Hyderabad has moved up the GCC metrics in the global market because of the kind of brand names it has attracted, the kind of talent pool it has generated and attracted, and the kind of good infrastructure and large real estate capacity it has built that offers space at about 10% lower costs than Bengaluru.
Building next-gen IP
Karthik Padmanabhan, managing partner at consultancy Zinnov, said Hyderabad is today home to over 370 GCCs, including a thriving cluster of more than 100 midmarket centres. The city, he said, now accounts for nearly 13% of India’s digital talent – the fastest year-on-year growth across any metro, and a staggering 55% of its GCC workforce is concentrated in high-value verticals like software & internet, BFSI, and semiconductors.
He said what sets Hyderabad apart is not just volume, but the velocity and vibrancy of transformation. “Companies like Qualcomm, Novartis, Microsoft, AMD, and Uber aren’t just running operations here — they are building next-gen IP, leading global engineering mandates, and even hosting global leadership from their Hyderabad bases. This is where digital products are being imagined, prototyped, and launched for global markets,” he said.
EY’s financial services GCC consulting leader Manoj Marwah said Hyderabad has taken the concept of city-as-a-service, just like you have SaaS, with proactive governance. “Right from police to real estate to municipal corporation, I don’t think there is any other city where access to government is available digitally and you have commitment from top down. The legacy of Chandrababu Naidu, who set up Cyberabad, has been carried on by successive governments,” he said.
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