Data and AI company EXL has opened its international business headquarters in Dublin.
It marks a significant expansion of the US-headquartered firm's presence in Ireland, after it first established operations in the country in 2023.
"A lot of EXL's existing business is centred in the US, we have been growing very rapidly, we just reported our 20th quarter of consecutive growth," said Rowan McGrath, senior vice president of international at EXL.
"As we look to the future, it was important that we would establish ourselves in a market in which we felt there was significant growth opportunities," he said.
"Ireland being a member of the European Union is an obvious place to locate a headquarters to expand into Europe, Middle East and Africa - and, indeed, further afield into Asia-Pacific," he added.
EXL employs around 61,000 people globally and works with a range of companies to help them analyse and make better use of their data. It works with a number of major tech companies including Google, Microsoft, AWS and Nvidia.
The company has also established an AI Innovation Lab as part of its Dublin operations, initially employing 60 people focused on R&D for industry-specific AI solutions.
"We were particularly keen to tap into the significant technology ecosystem that exists in Dublin - all of the big players have been here, some of them for as long as 60 or 70 years," said Mr McGrath. "We felt that was a very valuable asset we could tap into as we drive our expansion."
EXL aims to hire up to 200 AI and data engineering specialists by 2026. Mr McGrath said the company was confident they would find the talent to fill those roles.
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"To date our experience has been good," he said. "We'll see now as we expand over the next number of years what the talent ecosystem will provide.
"I think Ireland has a healthy supply of talent - there's about 20,000 STEM graduates every year; and then we can also tap into an EU pool of about 1.3m STEM graduates. So we think there's sufficient talent there to meet our needs."
EXL's decision to base here has been welcomed by the Government and IDA Ireland, both of which are keen to establish Ireland as a global hub for AI.
Mr McGrath said that while Ireland is attractive to firms like his, there is always more that can be done to improve that proposition.
"It's a technology and an industry that is moving at a phenomenal pace so I think we can always do more," he said. "We have done well to date - but we compete on a global scale for talent; whether that's in India, in Europe, in the US, in the UK.
"We do need to continue to make significant investments in the third level institutions... but also attracting leading, cutting-edge research and development projects at postgrad level as well; and obviously continue with the business supports."
