IT industry, TS-iPASS drive Hyderabad’s growth

If nothing works, IT will work for Telangana. Despite the economic slowdown that resulted in a decline in growth, the IT industry in Telangana continues to attract investments and act as the growth engine for the State.

Cheaper real-estate prices, relatively better infrastructure and availability of skilled manpower are making it an attractive proposition for both multinational and domestic IT firms.

Big-ticket investments

This year has seen some big-ticket investments. Amazon, Intel, Micron, phone maker OnePlus, electronics major SkyWorth, and Hitachi Vantara are some of the IT majors that set up shop in Hyderabad, all in the last four months.

As the State targets IT exports of ₹1.2 lakh crore in 2019-20, doubling the number from 2013-14, the year it was formed, Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao attributes the success so far to the ‘pro-active IT policy’ formulated by the goverment. In 2018-19, it clocked IT exports of ₹ 1.09 lakh crore.

Real-estate industry research firm JLL has said Hyderabad could surpass Bengaluru in terms of office space absorption with over 12 million sq ft in 2019.

One major trigger for this is the continued appetite for space by information technology and IT-enabled services companies.

New entrants

Chip maker Intel, which acquired a local start-up working in the niche automobile tech space early this year, chose to set up its R&D centre with an initial workforce of 400 employees. The 40,000-sq ft facility will work on hardware platforms, 5G and System on Chip (SoC). It will have about 1,500 employees in the next few months.

Not very far from the Madhapur facility of Intel, Nasdaq-listed Micron Technology opened a Global Development Centre in October. The $30.4-billion firm will hire 2,000 employees for the 3.5 lakh sq ft facility.

Hitachi Vantara, a Hitachi firm, set up an innovation and global delivery centre for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region with 300 people. The number is set to double over the next year.

Telangana Minister for IT and Industries K T Rama Rao says TS-iPASS, the Industrial Policy launched after the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) formed its maiden government in the State, has given approvals to 11,570 industries. “About 80 per cent of the companies have started functioning and have generated six lakh jobs,” he said recently. With the IT sector continuing to be the mainstay, he has asked officials to identify the availability of land in land banks and in industrial parks. The State is also providing investors with information related to the availability of land to locate their ventures.

Besides the traditional IT industry, Telangana is also witnessing steady growth of startups. The ecosystem just gets strengthened by the entry of global co-working space providers like WeWork. The firm has opened two facilities in December with a total capacity of 7,000 seats.

The State is betting on the second phase of T-Hub to further boost the innovation ecosystem in the city. When it is ready in March-April, 2020, the second phase will be the second biggest incubator, spread over 3.5 lakh sq ft, behind a French incubator with 3.7 lakh sq ft.