GROWTH HUB: The city’s IT corridor expects GCCs to herald a new phase of progress default
Because of its strong foundation in mathematics and data science, domain expertise across industries and talent ecosystem,” he said, they chose Chennai.
Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, partner at Catalincs, said companies entering India over the past five years have increasingly focused on business transformation, driven by AI and other emerging technologies. Rengarajan Thiruvengadam, senior director of operations at TransUnion GCC India, said the centre has evolved from a delivery hub into an innovation node. “Our modernisation journey has enabled us to anchor critical global initiatives from Chennai, including the deployment of one of TransUnion’s early AI agents and the leadership of enterprise AI pilots,” he said. He said Chennai’s diversifying landscape is maturing the local ecosystem by deepening the talent pool for advanced AI and analytics work.
Tamil Nadu is witnessing a turnaround in its global capability centre (GCC) story. Existing centres are expanding operations, while the state continues to attract new setups, including in sectors that lack a strong presence in Chennai. Notable recent additions include Starbucks, American pharmacy chain Walgreens, and expansion of satellite operator SES and wind energy major Nordex. A significant portion of these opportunities emerge from companies building AI capabilities and moving digital solutions in-house. “Most new-age GCCs want to build products and platforms, using cloud, data analytics, IoT and AI technologies. He noted that TN benefits from co-location of GCCs alongside their manufacturing, engineering and R&D centres. “Co-location enables greater cross-pollination of ideas, resulting in innovation and IP creation. The next wave of GCCs will be in newer sectors of growth for the state, including electronics, semiconductors, defence, renewable energy, space and medical devices. He added that the state can pitch this joint proposition, encouraging companies to establish manufacturing facilities alongside their capability centres. TransUnion’s Chennai centre supports a wide range of capabilities, including platform engineering. As GCCs take on R&D mandates, TransUnion has focused on creating pathways for its workforce to move beyond operational support into global product ownership.
“Over the past 12 to 18 months, many organisations have decided to make Chennai their primary location. In the last three months alone, more than 6,000 roles have moved into the Chennai market,” Marwah said. Tamil Nadu’s position as a major multinational manufacturing and electronics export hub provides global boards with strong operational comfort, he said, adding that Coimbatore also has the potential to scale its GCC ecosystem from more than 75 centres today to nearly 200 by 2032. To ensure seamless execution, veteran leaders relocated from the US headquarters to anchor the site and guide local onboarding, said Vidyaprakash, who recently returned after a 25-year career in the US.
Marwah said that organisations have realised legacy processes won’t disappear due to existing technology and workforce debt.
Manoj Marwah, partner and GCC markets leader at EY India, said Chennai was viewed as a reliable secondary or risk-diversification hub for companies anchored in Bengaluru, Mumbai or Delhi-NCR. “This has led to a resurgence of capability centres handling both operations and technology,” he said. Indira Vidyaprakash, VP and Chennai site leader at Workday, said the centre contributes directly to Workday’s global product roadmap. “Workday established autonomous mission teams to give the Chennai centre direct decision-making control over global product roadmaps,” she said. The broad approach involves facilitating new investments and expansions and developing GCC corridors, said state industries minister S Keerthana. Global Capability Centres represent an important opportunity to deepen our engagement with global value chains and create high-value employment,” she said, emphasising a strong focus on ecosystem support.
EY, which has its own capability centres in Chennai and Coimbatore, helps global corporations design and set up centres end-to-end. As companies race to adopt AI, the demand for foundational tech work and operations has increased. This growth runs contrary to the early belief that generative AI would negatively impact the GCC ecosystem. Starbucks, for instance, reportedly plans to cut spending on third-party software firms by building in-house. CTO Anand Varadarajan noted in a blog that the centre will help transition third-party work internally over time. Interestingly, major US enterprise software company Workday’s Chennai team plays a crucial role in building agent orchestration initiatives that extend well beyond user-facing agents and platform work. The site handles the entire software development lifecycle, encompassing core engineering, quality assurance, and infrastructure production engineering. The company drives a two-way global exchange where team members from headquarters temporarily embed with each other to promote continuous knowledge sharing. The state govt has proposed a GCC development programme to strengthen TN’s position in research and capability operations, which includes setting up common infrastructure. The Pallavaram-Thoraipakkam Radial Road, Mount-Poonamallee High Road, and Rajiv Gandhi Salai (OMR) have been proposed as these corridors. “Our next phase of growth must build on Tamil Nadu’s existing strengths by creating an environment where global businesses can establish and expand their capability centres. The growing adoption of AI and geopolitical developments, including increasing restrictions on US visas, are likely to drive this further.
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