Cognizant to invest Rs 500 crore to expand Hyderabad facility

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In a major booster for the IT sector in the city, IT major Cognizant on Wednesday announced that it would be investing over Rs 500 crore in expanding its Gachibowli facility in the city to accommodate another 8,000 professionals over the next few years.

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The IT major, which started it Hyderabad operations in 2002 with 180 people, currently employs 18,000 people across five facilities in the city. The Gachibowli campus is the sole facility owned by the company while the rest, spread out in Ameerpet and Hitec City area, are leased.

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With its latest investment, the company will be adding a built-up area of 1.5 million sq ft on its 11-acre Gachibowli campus, which has an existing 2.25 lakh sq ft facility, the company said in a statement.

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Currently, the Hyderabad campus is Cognizant’s primary center for industry aligned business process services.

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Commenting on the expansion plans, Cognizant vice-chairman Lakshmi Narayanan said, “Cognizant’s investment in Hyderabad underscores our commitment to grow our operations in the city and tap into the region’s best-in-class talent. Our Hyderabad center is an important part of our integrated global delivery capability and represents our continued success in hiring the best talent to support our ever expanding range of services, industries, and geographies.” Through its centres in the city, the company provides a host of services like consulting, enterprise applications, IT infrastructure, and business process services to over 300 of its global clients in sectors spanning banking and financial services, insurance, retail, hospitality, manufacturing and life sciences.

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This apart, the company has hired over 8,000 fresh graduates over the past five years from around 20 engineering, management, science, arts and commerce colleges in the region.

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