PUNE & CHENNAI | 11 August 2026: Germany-based IT services and software engineering company adesso SE has expanded its presence in India with new offices in Pune and Chennai, strengthening its access to AI, engineering, cloud and data capabilities. The Pune office opened on 5 August, while the new Chennai location was inaugurated on 3 August 2026. The two locations are designed as innovation hubs for artificial intelligence, cloud architectures and intelligent automation, complementing adesso India’s existing operations in Kochi. The expansion is intended to meet growing demand from international clients for technology and AI expertise in India, while strengthening adesso’s ability to support global clients and their GCC ecosystems.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

  • AI & Innovation Hubs: Pune and Chennai are being developed as centres focused on AI, cloud architectures and intelligent automation, strengthening adesso India’s technology capability base.
  • Dual-City Capability Clusters: adesso identifies enterprise IT and engineering as strengths of Pune, while Chennai brings together capabilities in data, AI and legacy modernisation.
  • Support for Global GCC Ecosystems: The new locations are intended to provide direct support to internationally active companies, including organisations establishing and operating their own Global Capability Centres in India.
  • Growing Cross-Client Capability: With the new Chennai office, adesso India now has its first independent, cross-client location in Chennai, alongside the separately operated Exasol Tech Hub.

adesso SE is a Germany-based IT services and consulting company providing digital transformation, software development, cloud, data and AI capabilities across multiple industries. Their Indian operations are becoming an increasingly important part of the group’s international delivery model. The new Pune and Chennai locations add to its existing presence in Kochi and are intended to strengthen its access to specialist technology talent while supporting international client engagements.

The company’s offering across the two new locations includes custom software development, quality assurance and testing, DevOps and cloud management, data modernisation and AI, Salesforce solutions, and SAP transformation including S/4HANA migration and BTP implementation. The expansion also aligns with adesso’s increasing focus on agent-based AI, productivity and value creation, alongside its broader ambition to embed AI into enterprise transformation.

ENGINEERING THE AI-ENABLED DELIVERY MODEL

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By strengthening our footprint across India, we are investing in the talent, capabilities and innovation ecosystems needed to lead that transformation. Our new offices will serve as centres of excellence, enabling us to co-create intelligent solutions, accelerate innovation and deliver lasting value for customers across the globe.

– Pramod Muralidharan, Managing Director, adesso India

The operational model across the two locations reflects a targeted capability strategy:

  • Product & Enterprise Engineering in Pune: Pune brings a strong base of enterprise IT and engineering capability, supporting software development and technology-led client engagements.
  • Data, AI & Modernisation in Chennai: Chennai is being positioned around data, AI and legacy modernisation, alongside cloud and intelligent automation capabilities.
  • Global-Local Delivery: adesso describes its India subsidiary as a “Global Local Player” – an organisation embedded in the Indian market while remaining an integral part of the group’s global delivery network.
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Our subsidiary in India is a prime example of our approach to act as a ‘Global Local Player’ in international markets. adesso India is a successful company in India and at the same time an integral part of the global delivery network of the adesso Group. At our innovation hubs in Pune and Chennai, we are pooling our AI and data expertise, which we will use in the future to support international companies both locally and globally.

– Mark Lohweber, CEO, adesso SE

ADESSO’S GCC ENABLEMENT MODEL

Alongside its own delivery and innovation capabilities, adesso has developed SaGE (SmartShore AI-Powered GCC/Global Engine) – as an end-to-end framework to design, launch, govern, scale and optimise GCCs. The framework is positioned around building GCCs as extensions of product teams and value engines, with emphasis on governance, specialised talent, execution, resilience and measurable business impact.

This is relevant to adesso’s India expansion because the company is simultaneously strengthening its own technology capability base and building the ability to support enterprises establishing and operating GCCs in India.

TECHNOLOGY CONTEXT & CASE EXAMPLE: THE EXASOL TECH HUB

The Exasol Tech Hub in Chennai provides the clearest existing example of adesso’s capability model in action. Opened in October 2025 and operated by adesso India, the hub brings together engineering talent focused on advancing the Exasol Analytics Engine, with an emphasis on AI-native capabilities across the analytics lifecycle.

The Exasol Tech Hub

  • Product Engineering: The centre is focused on advancing Exasol’s analytics technology and product capabilities.
  • AI-Native Analytics: The teams are working on capabilities including intelligent workload optimisation, automated performance tuning, AI-assisted data preparation and insight generation, alongside semantic search and modern data-stack integrations.
  • Cloud & Ecosystem Modernisation: The initiative also includes cloud-native deployment, Kubernetes/Terraform support and integrations across tools such as dbt Cloud, Airbyte, Dagster, Fivetran and Airflow.
  • Scaling Through Partnership: Within five months of launching the Tech Hub, adesso stated that plans were already underway to double the India expansion, reflecting the potential of a partnership-led GCC model to scale with demonstrated value.

The case illustrates an important distinction: a GCC can be built not only through direct captive investment, but also through a strategic operating partnership that combines product ownership, specialist talent and an established delivery framework.

Industry Insights

  1. Capability Networks Are Replacing Single-City Thinking: adesso’s Pune-Chennai expansion shows how organisations can combine different talent ecosystems rather than attempting to build every capability in one location.
  2. AI Is Becoming a Delivery Discipline: The emphasis is shifting from simply adding AI skills to embedding AI across software engineering, data modernisation, cloud and enterprise transformation.
  3. GCC Enablement Is Becoming a Distinct Business Model: adesso’s SaGE framework and Exasol engagement illustrate the emergence of partnership models that help enterprises design, build and scale GCC capabilities, rather than only deliver projects.
  4. Product Ownership Strengthens the GCC Value Proposition: The Exasol model demonstrates how India-based teams can move beyond project execution towards ongoing product engineering, platform modernisation and technical ownership.

FUTURE OUTLOOK

adesso’s expansion is significant not simply because it adds two more Indian locations, but because it reflects a changing model for how European technology companies can use India.

The emerging pattern is distributed capability with specialised depth: Pune contributes enterprise engineering strength, Chennai adds data, AI and modernisation capabilities, while Kochi and the broader India network provide additional delivery capacity.

At the same time, the Exasol engagement shows another layer of evolution: India-based teams can increasingly operate with product ownership, engineering accountability and global technical leadership, rather than being limited to project execution. For GCC leaders, the important question is therefore moving beyond where to locate a GCC to how to architect a distributed capability network around specialised talent, product ownership and AI-enabled delivery.

That makes India’s next competitive advantage less about having the largest talent pool in one city, and more about the ability to connect multiple talent ecosystems into one coherent global capability model. For adesso, Pune and Chennai are therefore not simply new offices. They are building blocks for a broader India capability network designed to support global clients, GCC ecosystems and increasingly AI-driven technology transformation.

Curated by SSF Global

Tracking the shifts shaping GCCs, enterprise ecosystems, and the future of global business.

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SSF Global is a Global Community for Enterprise Function Leaders and serves as a research & advisory platform focused on Global Business Services (GBS), Global Capability Centres (GCCs), and the evolution of enterprise innovation in India and beyond. We track, publish, and partner in narratives that shape how capability centres transform into hubs of trust, intelligence, and sustainable growth. We also evaluate, assess and benchmark the GCCs for their performance, maturity and other parameters using our proprietary tools built from the knowledge gained from direct interaction with our members (GCCs & GBS).