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Workday has expanded its Global Capability Centre (GCC) in Chennai, deepening a commitment that began when the US enterprise software company signed one of the city's largest office leasing deals, securing around 1.94 lakh square feet at Millenia Business Park through Cowrks and Brookfield Properties.
The Chennai centre, Workday's second base in India after Pune, is positioned as a core location for product development, technology innovation, and global operations support ,not a back-office function. The company has stated that building agentic AI systems is central to what the facility will do.
Workday has said the investment, reported at around ₹220 crore, is expected to create up to 3,000 jobs. The focus on next-generation AI technologies, including agentic systems that can carry out multi-step tasks autonomously, signals the kind of engineering talent the centre will seek: product engineers, AI developers, and senior technical specialists rather than generalist IT support staff.
The expansion sits alongside Workday's reported plans to open its first India-based data centre, which would allow Indian enterprise customers to have their data stored locally , a consideration that has become increasingly important to large organisations navigating data residency requirements.
Workday's stated rationale for the India push reflects a broader industry argument: that agentic AI is now the primary lever for productivity growth, particularly as global talent pools tighten. The company already runs multiple AI agents on its platform and has said it is scaling that capability rapidly. Chennai, with its established technology workforce, is where a significant portion of that engineering work will be based.
