Gautam Baruah inaugurates the IBM office in Guwahati. Telegraph picture

IBM, one of the world’s largest IT companies, has brought Guwahati under its operations as part of its ongoing expansion in the country.

The new office in Guwahati that opened on November 23 is the company’s 18th branch in India.

“Guwahati is the gateway to the Northeast where we are experiencing strong demand from the banking, manufacturing, distribution and government sectors,” said Nipun Mehrotra, vice-president, general business and geographic expansion, IBM India/South Asia.

He said companies and governments across the region were looking to IT as a way to further drive innovation while ensuring the optimisation of operations. “The last few years have shown an increase in demand for our IT solutions and services in the region,” he added.

As part of its growth strategy, IBM aims to invest in the education system in the region with a number of partnerships and academic initiatives, especially to support the growth of open source technologies. For instance, IBM is partnering IIT Guwahati to foster innovation and promote local technology talent.

The company plans to establish its presence in 40 Indian cities by 2013. It seeks to strengthen its ability to deliver more advanced technologies and services to its clients across the country, by extending its network of regional branches.

As businesses and government organisations turn to IT to reduce costs and gain competitive advantage, there is demand for its information management, security, cloud computing and business analytics solutions.

“We recognise the role of technology and innovation in driving economic and societal development,” said IIT Guwahati director Gautam Baruah, who inaugurated IBM’s Guwahati office.

“IBM has been closely working with IIT and other universities across the country to improve and evolve open standards-based IT skills and we look forward to increasing our partnership, especially in emerging fields such as cloud computing and business analytics,” he said.

IBM has provided IIT Guwahati with an IBM Faculty Award and has also sponsored candidates under the institute’s “I Live to Lead” (iL2L) programme.