Bengaluru, a well-known cosmopolitan city in India is crowned as the country’s ‘Silicon Valley’ for rallying with some of largest multinational IT companies and startups. Pitched as a major hub for information technology companies in India, Bengaluru bears a comparison with the original Silicon Valley of USA i.e. San Francisco Bay Area, California. What’s more? Bengaluru’s tech hub has drawn the limelight for a massive expansion in the realm of fin-tech, artificial intelligence and the booming space of automation and virtual reality.
The city is more becoming by the day, with a spree of upcoming tech startups taking shape in Bengaluru’s bustling IT space. It also enjoys an easy, cosmopolitan aura — its pleasant nature, well landscaped, has attracted many a tourist. The garden city of India is a potpourri of diversified culture, nationalities, and religions.
How did Bengaluru grow to become one of the biggest IT hubs across the globe? The story behind the initiative of developing Bengaluru city comes from the visit of GE’s (General Electric) former CEO & Chairman, Jack Welch, for selling airplanes and engines to the Indian government in the 1980s. He was persuaded by the Indian government and IT experts to set-up a development center in India as a good turn. After GE was setup in Bengaluru, it exerted an influence on a variety of other international businesses to follow the same trend of setting their business centers in Bengaluru.
A massive contribution to Bengaluru’s development came from K.R. Baliga, the first Chairman and MD of Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation. During the 1970s, he initiated an idea of bringing up the electronics industry to Bengaluru by purchasing 335 acres of land in South Bengaluru to establish an industrial park, now popularly known as Electronic City. This marked the evolution of IT sector in the city.
How did this move impact the city? This kickstarted an array of massive expansion across important public sectors such as aerospace & manufacturing, defence, and space. Eventually, Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) successfully set up 12 research laboratories related to avionics, artificial intelligence, and electronics in the city. This laid a foundation for attracting many other firms concentrating in Research & Development, electronics, software production and other sectors.
Influenced by all these positive factors, companies like Infosys and Wipro were soon ticked Bengaluru as their headquarters. Momentarily, Bengaluru started shaping into one of the largest IT hubs across the global tech scene, connecting businesses around the world.
The city was on a high — with IT firms mushrooming across Bengaluru’s expansive region, demand for skilled professionals surged. And the perks? A positive, trickle-down effect — the standard of education increased significantly, higher employment levels, helping achieve an improved standard of living.
What are the biggest benefits for global multinationals, one might think? The country’s skilled talent pool, along with inexpensive wage rates provide much support to the larger companies.
The monetary haul is not to be missed, either. The move to set up shop in Bengaluru has seen hundreds of global IT companies save billions every year, as cost synergies.
Today, Bengaluru is the highly populated city in India housed with nearly 8–10 IT parks, and coworking spaces encompassed of major IT industries with excellent talents. Besides climate being the beneficial factor, Bengaluru is home to the third busiest airport hub in the country which operates international and domestic flights — a driving force for greater mobility for many across the globe.
Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India might not resemble the traits of original Silicon Valley of USA. But in the near future, Bengaluru’s huge talent resource and IT ecosystem can help chart scintillating growth, making India proud.
