Japanese conglomerate Hitachi’s digital engineering arm GlobalLogic is expanding its core business and leadership in India, limited not just to the engineering talent base, but with plans to expand GCC partnerships and enterprise AI deployments across the country.

“Instead of leadership sitting in Europe or North America, they are actually moving those leadership and business functions to India,” said Ethan Matyas, Chief Delivery Officer, GlobalLogic.

Matyas added the country as building a space for global co-creation and innovation hub due to its engineering talent base, scale and digital ecosystem maturity.

Hitachi acquired GlobalLogic in 2021, and seeks to integrate it further with Hitachi Digital Services under its Lumada 3.0 strategy. The idea for this is to deepen AI and industrial digitalisation capabilities globally.

The company is seeing sharp growth from multinational Global Capability Centres (GCCs), which seeks to transition end-to-end product ownership and innovation mandates to India. According to GlobalLogic, its GCC business in India has grown nearly 60% year-on-year for the last three years, with the company currently working with around 45 GCCs. Executives said global firms are no longer using India merely as an offshore engineering extension, but more so for relocating leadership functions, product development and business operations to the country.

GlobalLogic has around 15,500 engineering employees in India, with nearly half of it’s global workforce servicing not only India but also Japan, Europe and North America. While the company said it continues recruitment at levels similar to last year, executives indicated AI-led productivity gains might moderate future headcount expansion.

“I would not equate revenue expansion to a directly proportional increase in headcount,” said Piyush Jha, Group Vice President and Head, Asia Pacific (APAC), GlobalLogic.

Meanwhile, GlobalLogic is increasingly working with Hitachi on areas related to Physical AI, classified as an important focus point.

“One of the products we are working on is BuilMirai, which focuses on smart building management. We are launching it in India and Asia before going to Europe and US because we are seeing massive pent-up demand here. Indian consumers adopt technology incredibly fast, as seen with digital payments, and the market is more adaptive,” Jha said.

The platform uses AI to optimise building energy consumption, occupancy, lighting and access systems through connected devices and Bluetooth-enabled automation. Executives described physical AI as where artificial intelligence converges with operational technology (OT), industrial systems and real-world infrastructure.

“The amalgamation of IT and OT was the core thesis of Hitachi and GlobalLogic coming together,” Jha said. He added, “Hitachi handles the physical assets across rail, energy and connected industries, and our job is to make those products smarter.”

The company is also building AI-led retail and medtech applications, including geofencing systems for personalised in-store offers and neuromodulator-based IoT healthcare devices capable of improving mobility through precision medicine delivery.

The country’s digital adoption cycle makes it an ideal place for scaling.

“India as a market allows room for experimentation, enabling companies to learn, adapt and strengthen their offerings over time,” Jha said.

Currently, the company has more than 75 Al products, 200+ Al Enabled Accounts whereas 50% of GL Business augmented by Al Tech.