Data and AI giant Databricks has announced a $250 million investment in India over the next three years, aimed at strengthening R&D, building talent pipelines, and accelerating enterprise AI adoption.

“This is a digitally enabled economy with deep engineering depth,” says Ed Lenta, SVP & GM, Asia Pacific & Japan at Databricks. “We are not just investing in India to grow here but also to serve customers globally from here.”

The investment will fund go-to-market initiatives, engineering, support services, and workforce training. Databricks plans to grow its India team by over 50%, surpassing 750 employees by the end of the fiscal year. The company has also opened a 105,000-square-foot R&D hub at Bagmane Capital Park in Bengaluru and plans to onboard over 100 new engineers in the coming months.

India is emerging as a strategic pillar in Databricks’ global operations, with capacity building across sales, field engineering, partner enablement, and customer success. The company aims to double its partner ecosystem to over 800 by next year and is working with key partners like Accenture, which has set up a dedicated Databricks lab at its Bengaluru Innovation Hub.

To boost AI talent development, Databricks also launched the India Data + AI Academy, a new initiative to train 500,000 professionals in data and AI skills through industry-aligned, hands-on courses.

“We’re in the middle of an AI transformation, and India is already leading in talent demand,” says Rochana Golani, VP of Learning & Enablement.