(Feb 5): BlackRock Inc plans to hire nearly 1,200 people to expand two support hubs in India and build out its artificial intelligence capabilities in the country, according to people familiar with the matter.

The world’s largest asset manager is hiring for its iHubs, as the centres are known, in Mumbai and Gurugram, a satellite town near New Delhi. BlackRock is also inheriting a so-called global capabilities centre with roughly 1,500 staff in Bangalore through its proposed purchase of data firm Preqin, said the people, who declined to be identified citing confidential information.

The new hires will bolster headcount in this area by about a third, adding to the roughly 3,500 staff in the Gurugram and Mumbai offices, the people said. BlackRock wants to build out its artificial intelligence team, and will hire engineers and data experts when the plans firm up, the people said.

A spokesperson for the New York-based firm declined to comment on the hiring plans.

Once an outpost for grunt back-office work, India has witnessed a rapid increase in global capability centers, where employees include engineers and lawyers for companies ranging from banks to pharmaceutical firms. India is expected to become a US$110 billion (RM485.7 billion) market for these GCCs by 2030, and will employ more than 4.5 million people, according to a report from Ernst & Young.

Financial firms such as JPMorgan Chase & Co, HSBC Holdings Plc and Apollo Global Management Inc employ thousands in their India hubs. Goldman Sachs Group Inc has invested in its GCCs in Bengaluru and Hyderabad that employ about 9,000 people, according to the firm’s website.

BlackRock’s iHubs work on value-added products and services ranging from investment research to risk management, financial engineering, business operations and data analytics, the people said. Several of these areas incorporate and leverage artificial intelligence, they added.

To accommodate more employees and support future growth, BlackRock has leased additional office space in the Mumbai suburb of Goregaon from developer Oberoi Realty Ltd in a deal worth nearly four billion rupees, the people said. Economic Times first reported the real estate deal.

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