India is estimated to become a hub for global engineering research and development centres and to make an immense contribution to global multinational corporations, digital strategies, leading to increased demand for commercial real estate and data centres.

R&D Hub to Boost Commercial Realty

According to property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield, Engineering R&D revenues are expected to mark a compound annual growth of about 8 percent by the financial year 2022, with multinationals driving growth through products and services.

In the future, engineering R&D revenue is estimated to overtake business process management (BPM) services revenues, thereby consolidating the former's role as the second-highest contributor, after information technology, to software revenues.

As of the financial year 2019, engineering R&D centres accounted for about 20 percent of multinational corporations' total tech revenues, routed about half of their engineering R&D revenues.

It is hoped that this would have a favourable effect on the growth of RMD systems, as well as job growth over the medium to long term in India. Several Tier-II cities are marking potential for the establishment of Global Capability Centres (GCC). Most of these are state capitals and, in addition to better connectivity, superior physical and social infrastructure will draw new talent. In contrast, these towns are also ranked higher on ease of living and doing business.

Digital engineering or engineering R&D centres drive the Indian GCC ecosystem across many industry verticals, such as tech, automobile, finance, financial services and medium to long-term insurance.

By: Shailaja K