SAP will “over proportionally” hire for its India lab with a focus on talent for R&D. Christian Klein, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE said SAP Labs’ new facility in Bengaluru will expand its capacity, with the company continuing to invest in R&D and customer success in India.

“The India lab is strategically important to us. 25 years ago, the R&D labs here had around 100 people. Now, it’s over 15,000. It’s the fastest-growing and the second-largest lab, already the largest when you only count engineers. India represents a great talent space. Large parts of our business AI development are done here out of the labs. From a market perspective, the country is one of the fastest-growing markets and will be one of the largest markets for SAP,” he explained.

SAP Labs India previously announced it will set up a new campus in Bengaluru. Located in Devanahalli, the new campus will come up at an outlay of 80 million euros for phase one.This second office, which will be spread over 41 acres, can host 15,000 employees. The first phase of the campus is expected to be operational by 2025.  

Sindhu Gangadharan, Managing Director, SAP Labs India and Head, Customer Innovation Services, had earlier said the company deepened its investments in the country with the new campus, aiming to create 15,000 new jobs in Bengaluru.

In India, 96per cent of the company’s customer base consists of mid-market customers who want growth at an efficient cost level, which requires significant investments in technology and dependency on AI, emphasised Muhammad Alam Member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Product Engineering.

“Our product strategy, which we call AI-First and Suite First, is driven by the commercial value AI brings to our customers. We aim to provide end-to-end business process coverage powered by AI to drive growth. Our largest lab from an R&D perspective is here in India with the Suite First mindset, and the AI talent here is phenomenal,” he said.

Klein continued, “In Q3, 30per cent of SAP’s deals included AI, with AI embedded in 100per cent of the deals’ business cases. GenAI has been a massive booster for our AI business. Our traditional licensed business will continue to decline as we successfully transform to the cloud. The speed of innovation in the cloud is much faster, which is why many customers, especially in India, are using our cloud software.”

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