A Second Turning: India As The Talent Haven For Global Tech

The Donald Trump administration’s decision to impose a $100,000 annual fee on new H‑1B petitions is a tectonic shift for the global technology industry. The intent is clear: restrict the inflow of skilled foreign talent into the US. Yet, the data tells a very different story from the political rhetoric.

H‑1B workers are not low-cost substitutes for American jobs. Among the top 25 sponsors are US companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Accenture, and Intel. The average salaries for H‑1B hires range from $100,000 to $200,000, far above the US median household income.

Indian IT firms, often portrayed as exploiting cheap visas, actually charge clients $150,000–$200,000 per engineer annually to cover wages, travel, taxes, deductions, and compliance costs. By no measure is this cheap labour, though facts do little to temper the culture war politics at play in the US.

The fallout will be far from the intended surge in US hiring, which has already been recently revised downwards significantly. Instead, it is likely to accelerate the relocation of critical work offshore.

Indian IT majors have localised 50–65% of their US workforce, hedging against visa volatility. Post Covid, distributed teams have become normalised, with Indian firms able to deliver 90–95% of project work remotely.

Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are already a powerful trend in India, and more US corporations will accelerate their decisions to hedge themselves. The result will be deeper integration of Indian talent into global value chains, not less.

If addressed with vision, this moment can be the second turning of “awakening” for Indian IT, echoing the archetypes of generational theory in Western history while signalling a decisive transition for the industry.

India As The Next Talent Haven

Just as Ireland became the tax haven of choice for US corporations, India is increasingly becoming the talent haven for technology. US enterprises concentrated their global IP, revenue collection, and profit pooling in Ireland to minimise US tax exposure, underscoring their willingness to leverage any jurisdictional advantage to protect global market presence and sectoral leadership.

With similarly forward‑thinking policies, India can mirror Ireland’s playbook and encourage US enterprises to anchor even more of their talent‑intensive work here.

Of the Fortune 500, 291 companies already operate GCCs in India, tapping into the country’s vast pool of engineers, developers, and data scientists. These centres are no longer cost-saving back offices as in the 2000s; they are focal points for R&D, AI, product engineering, global delivery, project management, and chip design.

The GCC momentum is extraordinary. India already hosts around 1,700 GCCs today, and this is expected to rise to 2,400–2,550 by 2030. The market size is forecast to expand from $46 Bn in 2023 to $110 Bn by 2030.

The set‑up rate is accelerating, from about 70 centres annually in the early 2020s to more than 100 per year midway through the decade. By 2030, GCCs are projected to employ over 4.5 Mn professionals across Indian cities.

Why Global Firms Are Doubling Down On India?

For global enterprises, India offers several decisive advantages:

• Scale of Talent: With more than 1.4 Mn STEM graduates annually, India is one of the world’s deepest talent pools. More than 30% of annual graduates come from STEM fields
• Decades of Workforce Development: By 2025, Indian IT companies have collectively employed more than 7 Mn technology professionals worldwide and have trained +10 Mn individuals over the past three decades
• Capability Evolution: GCCs have moved up the value chain from call centres in the 2000s to full-fledged innovation hubs handling AI, advanced analytics, product design, technical migrations, and frontier research in the 2020s. Their ability to adapt swiftly to global cultures and sustain high productivity levels sets them apart from other regions
• Resilience and Continuity: During the pandemic, Indian GCCs kept global businesses running seamlessly, building trust in distributed delivery models. They are now essential to managing the complexity of multi-regional businesses

Crucially, this is no longer just an American story.

Non‑US multinationals are growing their India GCC presence at nearly double the rate of US firms. Japanese firms, for instance, now account for 5% of India’s GCC ecosystem.

Toyota’s Bengaluru GCC is working on advanced EV battery R&D, a clear signal that India is moving from support to innovation leadership. Similar moves are being made by European insurers, banks, and industrial manufacturers.

The Shape Of Future Work Migrations

Several US industries are particularly well‑suited to accelerate GCC expansion in India:

• Financial Services: The digitalisation of banking, the essential need for high-quality security and automation, and the demand for 24/7 operations make India indispensable for global financial institutions
• Healthcare, Insurance, and Pharma: Clinical trials, claims management, regulatory compliance, manufacturing oversight, and drug discovery analytics are increasingly being offshored
• Technology and SaaS: More US firms are embedding their India centres at the heart of enterprise workflows, from cloud infrastructure management and cybersecurity operations to LLM training and systems architectures
• Manufacturing and Industrials: Industry 4.0 design, supply chain optimisation, product documentation, version control, localisation, and IoT development are being managed from India
• Retail and Consumer: Ecommerce platforms, supply chain analytics, logistics and fulfilment oversight, seller services, reconciliations, and customer support functions are scaling through Indian hubs

Far from cutting Indians out of the value chain, the new US rules may intensify the role of Indian talent by accelerating the flow of high-value work into India rather than on-site.

Increasingly, Indian-origin professionals in the US may also push back, choosing to relocate mandates and projects into their employers’ GCCs as they migrate back, strengthening India’s position through this shift.

The H‑1B Myth Vs Reality

The H‑1B visa debate in the US has long been clouded by misconceptions.

The “cheap labour” narrative ignores the fact that median wages for H‑1B workers exceed $100,000, well above national averages.

Employers also pay thousands in visa fees and compliance costs per employee. Far from undercutting American jobs, H‑1B professionals are often enablers of new projects and growth.

Silicon Valley leaders like Bill Gates and Elon Musk have argued that each skilled hire generates multiple complementary jobs for Americans while supporting the compounding of trillions in market capitalisation.

Blocking this pipeline does not protect local employment. It simply shifts innovation to where talent is more available.

The irony is stark: nearly half of all US unicorn founders are immigrants, many of whom first entered on H‑1B visas.

From Sundar Pichai to Jensen Huang, the program has fuelled America’s tech dominance for decades. Curtailing it now undermines the very innovation ecosystem that created these trillion‑dollar, market‑leading enterprises.

Indian IT’s Next Phase: From Integrators To Copilots

For India, this moment represents more than an outsourcing windfall. It is a strategic opening to deepen indispensability.

Since Y2K, Indian IT companies have guided global enterprises through migrations from manual to digital, from Web 1.0 to cloud and mobile, and now from point‑and‑click software to agentic AI.

They have earned the trust of thousands of global enterprises over multiple technological cycles, which is why they routinely land multi‑year, multi‑billion‑dollar contracts.

We have become habituated to their consistent contract wins and the unrelenting compounding of their share prices over three decades, obvious derivatives of their execution discipline.

Indian IT was born in a pre‑1991 socialist economy that was more antagonistic than supportive of business. Yet, it pioneered a global delivery model that runs software productivity 24/7 for global customers, setting the standards and profitability efficiencies startups aspire to today.

These firms are built to survive, compete, and win. They will embrace the GCC management trend and deploy managed custom AI to embed themselves further as transformation copilots, not just system integrators, for their US customers.

If policy now shapes a more supportive ecosystem for this evolution already underway, this latest event can become another crisis that Indian IT will turn into opportunity.

Never Waste A Good Crisis

Trump’s visa shock may prove an own goal for the US, but it can be India’s defining inflection point. By 2030, the country will host thousands of GCCs, employ millions in high‑value digital roles, and anchor itself at the frontier of global tech delivery.

If India unifies this GCC surge with sovereign capital-led infrastructure, persistent policy reform, and focused startup dynamism, it can stand out as the brain trust of global innovation.

America may be closing its gates, but India is opening its doors to talent, capital, and ideas. India now stands ready to become the world’s enduring talent haven. The tide is turning, and the world’s largest democracy has a once‑in‑a‑generation opportunity to seize the innovation high ground for decades to come.

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