Explore the work, talent, AI-readiness, culture, and employer brand salience of every
global enterprise's (un)official second HQ: their India Global Capability Center.
Global Capability Centers (or GCCs) in India aren’t back offices anymore. They’re product hubs, AI epicentres, innovation studios, ownership centers, engineering powerhouses, R&D engines, analytics arenas, and so much more.
What’s being built here is shaping global products, global experiences, and global impact, making India the de facto Second HQ for some of the largest enterprises in the world.
This is an attempt to discover and decode these GCCs. What’s the work? Why does it matter? How will it shape the future?
From Tier 1 cities (like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Mumbai, and Delhi NCR) to emerging Tier 2 hubs (like Mangalore, Nagpur, Vizag, Kochi, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and Bhubaneswar), explore what makes each city a magnet for global capability centers.
India’s GCC capital; 900+ centres, 47% of all GCC leasing in 2024-25; the city where AI research, product engineering, and startup-scale ambition converge in a single ecosystem accelerating skill development.
India's #1-ranked Tier-2 GCC city (Cushman & Wakefield); 60+ centres with 21% CAGR growth, the lowest attrition of any GCC city in India, and manufacturing-engineering talent depth unavailable at this cost anywhere else.
India's fastest-growing GCC city; 550+ centres, 41 new GCCs in 2025 (surpassing Bengaluru for the first time), and a policy execution fidelity that makes the city the most predictable and pleasant operating environment in India.
Uttar Pradesh's emerging GCC capital: IBM's AI Software Lab, the brain-drain reversal thesis (35% of Bengaluru's IT workforce is UP-origin), and India's most generous GCC incentive package; positioned at the very beginning of its GCC formation arc.
India's capital-region GCC hub; 465+ centres, 24.9 MSF of leasing, and the only city where BFSI domain depth, consulting-alumni leadership, heritage as a foundation, and proximity to India's financial regulators converge at GCC scale.
The Zero Mile Centre of India: MIHAN SEZ, Infosys's net-zero campus, NVIDIA at MIHAN, Maharashtra GCC Policy 2025; and a geographic position at the geographic centre of India that gives it supply chain and logistics technology advantages.
Behind every GCC is a story of exponential progress, purpose, and possibility. The StrateGCC Imperative captures these narratives; from the work shaping entire industries to the cultural undercurrents redefining what India means to the world of global enterprise.
There are 2,117 Global Capability Centers operating in India today. They generate nearly $100 bn in revenue, employ 2.36 mn professionals, and house the most consequential tech work most people haven't heard of. This essay is about why a sustained editorial ledger is the right response to it.
A list is a record of things that exist. A ledger is a record of things that accumulate meaning over time. Second HQ is being built as the latter. This essay explains why I've set out to document GCCs in deliberate batches, what each cohort is designed to reveal, and how it is shaping the future.
When Goldman Sachs chose Bengaluru in 2004, it was (with a lot of intentionality) choosing a city that had spent forty years building the conditions for consequential work. This essay argues why cities are active variables in every GCC story, and why they deserve their own record.
Each month, get a curated digest of the most important conversations, commentary, and catalog of India’s GCCs (Global Capability Centers).