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For more than two decades, India had a compelling answer to a simple global business question:

Where can we find skilled technology talent at scale, at a lower cost?

That answer helped build one of the world's largest offshore technology ecosystems. But in 2026, the question itself is changing.

India now hosts 2,117 Global Capability Centres employing approximately 2.36 million people, according to Nasscom-Zinnov data reported by Reuters. Their FY26 revenue is estimated at $98.4 billion, already approaching forecasts that had previously been associated with the end of the decade.

Scale is no longer the interesting part of the GCC story. Ownership is.

The next phase will not be determined by how much work global organizations can move to India. It will be determined by how much responsibility they are willing to move with it.

The Cost-Arbitrage Story Has Run Its Course

Cost still matters. Pretending otherwise would be unrealistic. But it is becoming a weaker explanation for why multinational companies continue expanding their Indian GCCs.

Wages are rising. Competition for AI, cybersecurity and advanced engineering talent is intense. Reuters reports that the historical GCC formula of skilled talent at scale and lower cost is being replaced by a model in which Indian centres increasingly resemble their global headquarters and are judged on outcomes rather than cost.

The shift becomes clearer when you look at what companies are actually saying. When cybersecurity company N-able opened its Bengaluru GCC in 2026, CEO John Pagliuca told Reuters: “The reason we're in Bengaluru is capability.”

He added that the company's priority was building for the long term rather than pursuing a short-term headcount strategy. Its India operation is expected to contribute to defensive AI technologies, automated threat detection and cybersecurity innovation.

That sentence captures the next chapter of India's GCC story better than almost any market-size projection.

India is increasingly competing on what its teams can own, not merely what they cost.

What Does Ownership Actually Look Like?

There is a major difference between executing a global process and owning a global capability.

• An execution centre receives requirements. A capability centre helps define them.
• An execution centre develops a feature. A capability centre owns part of the product roadmap.
• An execution centre generates reports. A capability centre influences the decisions those reports support.
• An execution centre follows an operating model. A capability centre helps design it.

And the evidence suggests this transition is already happening.

EY's 2025 GCC Pulse Survey found that 52% of India-based GCCs held shared accountability for global decisions, while another 26% were formally consulted. Twenty percent were progressing toward full ownership from India for selected functions. The same research found 45% of GCCs taking responsibility for global strategy leadership.

That is not outsourcing with a better job title. It is a redistribution of enterprise decision-making.

From Delivery Centre to “HQ Twin”

Perhaps the clearest example is emerging in life sciences.

EY found that 23 of the world's top 50 life sciences companies had established GCCs in India by 2025. These centres were taking on work across drug discovery, regulatory affairs and commercial operations.

EY described the emerging model as an “HQ twin”, where the GCC does not merely execute work but co-owns global pipelines and outcomes.

Think about what that means.

Drug discovery is not a support process. Product engineering is not back-office work. AI model development is not transactional delivery. Global cybersecurity is not simply an offshore function.

These are capabilities that directly influence how an enterprise competes.

When those mandates move into a GCC, the strategic relationship between the centre and global headquarters changes completely.

AI Is Accelerating the Shift

There is another reason the traditional GCC model is becoming obsolete: AI is changing the economics of routine work.

If AI and automation can perform more repetitive activities, then building a GCC primarily around large volumes of lower-complexity work becomes less compelling.

The value has to move upward. And it already is.

EY's research found that 58% of Indian GCCs were investing in Agentic AI, while 83% were investing in GenAI. Even more revealing, 67% were creating dedicated innovation teams and incubation programmes designed to generate, test and globalize ideas from India.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported in May 2026 that global firms are becoming more selective in GCC hiring as AI reduces demand for some routine entry-level work and increases demand for advanced skills in areas such as AI and cybersecurity.

This creates an important contradiction. AI could reduce the need for some of the work that originally made India attractive as an offshore destination.

At the same time, it could make India's strongest GCCs significantly more valuable.

The difference will be whether they remain execution centres or become centres of expertise, innovation and ownership.

The New GCC Metric Should Be Decision Rights

For years, GCC performance could be described through familiar numbers:

Headcount. Cost per FTE. Processes migrated. Service levels. Productivity.

Those metrics still matter, but they no longer tell leadership whether the GCC is strategically important. A more revealing set of questions would be:

• What products does the GCC own?
• Which enterprise platforms are architected from India?
• Which global decisions can India-based leaders make without waiting for headquarters?
• Which patents, products or intellectual property originate here?
• Which global business outcomes sit on the GCC leadership team's scorecard?
• How many leaders based in India hold global rather than regional mandates?

These are measures of capability maturity. And they expose something headcount never can: whether the GCC is actually becoming part of the enterprise's strategic core.

This Changes the Talent Equation Too

If GCCs move toward ownership, they need different people.

The old model could scale through specialists who were excellent at executing clearly defined work. The new model requires people who can operate with ambiguity.

• Product managers who understand customers.
• Architects who can make enterprise-wide technology decisions.
• AI specialists who understand business workflows.
• Cybersecurity leaders who can balance risk and speed.
• Transformation professionals who can connect technology with operating models.
• And managers who can influence stakeholders thousands of kilometres away without treating headquarters as the place where every important decision must eventually go.

India's advantage, therefore, cannot simply be a large technology workforce. It must become a deep leadership and capability workforce. This may be one of the biggest challenges facing the next phase of GCC growth.

India's Real GCC Opportunity

India's GCC opportunity is enormous, but the most interesting number is no longer how many centres will open. It is how many will become indispensable.

A centre that exists primarily because it lowers operating cost can eventually be compared with another lower-cost location. A centre that owns a global product, critical enterprise platform, AI capability, research programme or strategic decision is much harder to replace.

That is a very different kind of competitive advantage.

Deloitte describes India's GCC evolution as a transition from cost-focused technology hubs toward strategic extensions of global headquarters, integrating business functions and driving innovation, R&D and market growth.

The next step is to make that transformation measurable. Not through how much work arrives in India. Through how much authority arrives with it.

Final Thought

India has already proved that it can become the world's GCC scale leader. The next challenge is more difficult. It must become the world's capability ownership leader.

That means moving beyond the language of offshore delivery, talent arbitrage and relocated processes toward products, platforms, intellectual property, global leadership and decision rights.

The strongest GCCs of the next decade will not behave like distant extensions of headquarters. Increasingly, they will behave like headquarters themselves.

And when global enterprises decide where their next major capability should live, India's strongest argument may no longer be: We can do this work efficiently.

It may simply be: We can own it.

FAQs

1. Are Indian GCCs really moving beyond cost arbitrage?

Yes, although the transition is not uniform. Recent Nasscom-Zinnov data and industry research show GCCs expanding into product development, R&D, analytics, AI and strategic corporate functions. Reuters reported in 2026 that centres are increasingly being evaluated on outcomes rather than simply cost.

2. What does capability ownership mean for a GCC?

Capability ownership means the GCC has responsibility for outcomes rather than only execution. This could include owning a global product roadmap, enterprise platform, cybersecurity capability, data function, AI programme or business process, with meaningful decision rights based in India.

3. How is AI changing India's GCC model?

AI is reducing the relative value of some repetitive work while increasing demand for advanced engineering, data, cybersecurity, product and AI skills. GCCs are also becoming locations where enterprises build and scale AI capabilities themselves. EY found 58% of surveyed Indian GCCs investing in Agentic AI.

4. What should CEOs and GCC Heads measure beyond headcount and cost?

They should measure product and platform ownership, decision rights, global leadership mandates, innovation originating from the GCC, business outcomes owned by India-based teams, intellectual property creation and the percentage of critical capabilities managed end to end.

5. Is India's GCC growth likely to continue?

Current evidence points to continued expansion, although the model is changing. India's GCC sector reached approximately 2,117 centres and 2.36 million employees in FY26, with estimated revenue of $98.4 billion. Future growth is increasingly expected to depend on higher-value capabilities rather than headcount expansion alone.

Research base

The core data and arguments in this article draw on the 2026 Nasscom-Zinnov GCC landscape figures reported by Reuters, EY's GCC Pulse Survey 2025, and current analysis from Deloitte India on the evolution of GCCs into strategic extensions of global headquarters.