Can Gujarat Turn Its Manufacturing Powerhouse Into a GCC Advantage?

Gujarat has long built its economic identity around manufacturing, exports, and large-scale industrial investment. Now, the state is attempting to don another feather to its cap with global capability centres (GCCs).

The state’s pitch is straightforward—its existing industrial infrastructure, expanding talent pool, policy incentives, and technology hubs such as GIFT City and Dholera can provide the foundation for a GCC ecosystem.

The larger question, however, is whether Gujarat can translate its manufacturing prowess into a technology advantage and build a GCC ecosystem capable of competing with established hubs such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai.

“So far, Gujarat is a manufacturing-led economy. Now, we are pushing ourselves into a service-led, knowledge-based, and innovation-based economy,” P Bharathi, Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, Gujarat government, said at the GCC Workplace Innovation Summit & Awards 2026 last month.

She reasoned that this shift is essential as GCCs can connect Gujarat’s existing industrial base with technology-intensive functions such as engineering, product development, analytics, R&D, and digital operations.

Gujarat contributes 8.3% to India’s GDP, along with 18% of the industrial output and 31% of the country’s exports, according to the Gujarat government. According to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, FDI inflows into the state stood at over $50 billion between October 2019 and March 2026. Its gross state domestic product increased at a CAGR of 11.25% between FY16 and FY27BE.

The government now wants GCCs to become part of the next phase of this growth.

Gujarat’s Strength

Gujarat is not starting from scratch. According to the government, Ahmedabad currently has around 45 GCC units, while Vadodara has around 35. Surat and Rajkot are also increasingly entering the conversation.

“Ahmedabad has been consistently ranked as a top tier-2 city in India, and 15% of GCCs are coming to Ahmedabad, while 14% are going to Vadodara,” Bharathi shared.

The more interesting proposition is how these GCCs could differentiate themselves from tech hubs elsewhere. Rather than competing with Bengaluru or Hyderabad purely for conventional IT and back-office operations, Gujarat is positioning itself around engineering, manufacturing technology, supply chains, financial services, and industrial innovation.

Alouk Kumar, CEO Inductus Group, tells AIM that Gujarat’s GCC opportunity lies precisely in its ability to connect its industrial base with technology.

“Gujarat has managed to silently pull off the most interesting economic transformation in recent Indian history, as it has been able to convert its well-known legacy of manufacturing prowess into a successful GCC hotspot,” Kumar states.

The state’s manufacturing legacy can be its biggest strength to GCC growth. 

“This transformation goes far beyond traditional IT back-offices; it is about bringing intelligence closer to production. Global corporations are increasingly setting up engineering, research and design (ER&D) GCCs in Gujarat to manage complex supply chains, run Internet of Things (IoT)-driven smart factories, and oversee product lifecycle management directly from the source,” Kumar mentions.

Currently, the state has fewer than 100 GCCs, but it aims to attract 250 new units by 2030.

GIFT City and Dholera

Gujarat’s second major differentiator is GIFT City. The state is positioning the financial and technology hub as a natural location for GCCs operating across financial services, fintech, analytics, and global operations.

“GIFT City is India's only first greenfield smart city and international financial service centre with world-class infrastructure, talent pool, and a lot of foreign universities… and regulatory simplicity,” Kumar states.

GIFT City offers a unique business model by allowing companies to combine financial services, IT operations, and international trade in one hub. Its incentives include a 100% exemption on business income for a decade, as well as exemptions on capital gains, GST, STT, and stamp duty.

The state is also planning a dedicated fintech policy for GIFT City, further strengthening its financial-services proposition.

If GIFT City represents Gujarat’s financial and services proposition, Dholera represents its manufacturing and digital-infrastructure bet. The state is developing Dholera around semiconductors, electronics manufacturing, and advanced infrastructure.

According to the government, Gujarat has six semiconductor and electronics projects, including two electronics manufacturing zones in Dholera.

The region is also being positioned as a potential AI-driven data centre destination. “We are going to project Dholera as the world's most preferred destination for data centres. That's why we recently announced Viksit Gujarat Data Centre Policy 2026–29, and we are giving capex incentives only for the Dholera region,” Bharathi noted.

The policy targets 7.5 GW of data centre capacity and ₹6 lakh crore in investments over the next three years through financial incentives. It also mandates data centres to source at least 51% of their power from renewable energy resources.

Kumar sees data infrastructure as a critical component of this transition.

“Modern GCCs, especially those dealing with heavy industrial automation, generative AI, and real-time manufacturing simulations, require massive, localised computing power with zero latency. The state’s data centre framework addresses this appetite directly, attracting massive investments to build hyperscale facilities that can process petabytes of operational data streaming straight from industrial plants,” he suggests.

The Policy Push

Gujarat is also relying heavily on a mix of capital expenditure, operational expenditure, and employment-linked incentives to accelerate the transition.

Through its GCC policy 2025–30, the state is offering 20% capex incentives for non-IT infrastructure and 30% for IT infrastructure of up to ₹200 crore, along with stamp-duty exemptions, renewable energy-related support, and other incentives.

The government is also offering annual operational expenditure support of up to ₹40 crore and employment-generation incentives to attract GCCs. It is also offering interest subsidy at 7% on term loans or actual interest paid. It is also incentivising skilling of local talent and reimbursement of quality certification fees.

Kumar argues that these incentives, combined with Gujarat’s industrial base, are changing how multinationals could view the state.

Can Gujarat Solve the Talent Question?

Talent has historically been one of the biggest bottlenecks to Gujarat’s GCC ambitions. The state government, however, argues that this gap is narrowing.

“In Gujarat, traditionally we were lagging behind in talent, but right now, an excellent talent ecosystem is being built up. We have a very tech talent pool ready available for GCCs,” Bharathi noted.

The state has 11 institutes of national importance, including IIT Gandhinagar and IIM Ahmedabad, alongside around 120 engineering colleges. According to the government, Gujarat produces approximately 50,000 trained engineering professionals and 54,000 diploma professionals every year.

More importantly, the state is pitching the geographical spread of this talent as an advantage.

Unlike a GCC ecosystem concentrated around one metropolitan centre, Gujarat’s talent base stretches across Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, and the Kutch region. This distributed talent model could allow companies to build GCC operations across multiple cities rather than concentrating all hiring in Ahmedabad, Bharathi proposed.

The biggest challenge remains ecosystem maturity.

Bengaluru has decades of accumulated technology talent, startups, product companies, and R&D operations. Hyderabad has built scale through infrastructure, talent, and relatively fast execution. Chennai has a strong engineering and manufacturing base of its own.

Gujarat therefore has to prove that its combination of manufacturing, infrastructure, and incentives can compensate for its comparatively younger GCC ecosystem.