Noted US semiconductor company Micron Technology has grand plans to increase its hiring in India four times, specifically in the research and development sector over the next two years. The $30 billion company recently set up its R&D operations in Hyderabad which is supporting its global manufacturing operations.

As the company is working on building niche capabilities and support functions at its Hyderabad operations, Micron is looking to hire people from Tier I institutions in India. Manish Bhatia, Executive Vice-President, Global Operations at Micron, told a noted national daily, “Today, we have about 500 people in Hyderabad and expect to grow this strength to 2,000 over the next couple of years.”

Micron’s multi-billion dollar expansion in Singapore and its massive hiring plans in India come on the back of growing data-driven business opportunities beyond personal computers.

Sanjay Mehrotra, President and Chief Executive Officer at Micron, told the newspaper, “2-3 years ago, cloud and data centres were a small part of our industry. Today, they have become one of the fastest-growing segments within the industry segment. Automotive is another large area and one of the fastest-growing segments for the consumption of DRAM and NAND flash memories. Autonomous driving, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are all dependent on vast quantities of information. And as 5G technologies dramatically speed wireless communication, they will enable a truly intelligent network of billions of devices and every new device will create new streams of data.”

The plan is to make Indian operations a hub for IT development and some other capabilities to manage its global manufacturing operations.