SAP Labs India opens second campus in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: The world's biggest business software company, SAP, on Tuesday launched a second R&D campus in Bengaluru at an investment of Rs 1,800 crore. When fully constructed, the campus will give SAP the capacity to nearly double its workforce in the country to 30,000.The campus, near the international airport in Devanahalli, was inaugurated by chief minister Siddaramaiah. Others present on the occasion were state IT minister Priyank Kharge, German ambassador to India Philipp Ackermann, and a host of SAP's global leaders, including executive board member Thomas Saueressig, supervisory board member Gerhard Oswald, CTO Philipp Herzig, and India MD Sindhu Gangadharan. Union electronics & IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw delivered a video message.SAP Labs, as the R&D division is called, has over 17,000 employees in India, of which over 11,000 are in Bengaluru. The new 41-acre campus is an addition to the 22-acre Whitefield campus in the city. Gangadharan said 3,200 employees have moved into the new campus, and another about 1,300 would move in another two months. The SAP management has approved a second phase of construction in the new campus, and Gangadharan said that is expected to finish by the third quarter of 2028. Asked about future hiring, she said SAP Labs India has been hiring 1,500 to 2,000 people every year, and indicated that was likely to continue. "We have some of the best talent in the world here," she said.Saueressig described the campus as "not just a physical space….(but) a new chapter of innovation, innovation out of India for the world that will power all the large enterprises around the globe." He noted that more than 87% of the world's commerce goes through SAP systems, and said "here in Bengaluru, we have the opportunity to redefine what enterprise software will look like in the future, especially considering we are entering the age of AI."The company has software for almost all of the core processes in an enterprise – lead-to-cash (end-to-end life cycle of selling to and servicing customers), total workforce management, design-to-operate (connecting all stages of a product's lifecycle, from design & development through to production, logistics, and operation), strategic sourcing and procurement. Teams in India are integral parts of every one of the solutions, and Saueressig said AI is now being infused into all of those solutions. Gangadharan said there's no separate AI team in the company, instead "every SAP employee will be an AI developer."