Roofpoint is making a play for India with an expanded footprint that includes an AI Security CoE in Hyderabad and a new Delhi office.
The move comes as companies of all kinds hasten to make AI part of their daily routine, and in doing so they are confronted with a cybersecurity issue they can no longer sidestep: who is there to protect the AI?
Proofpoint’s answer lies in India. The firm is putting its money where its mouth is by opening an AI Security Engineering Centre of Excellence in Hyderabad and has put out plans to add over 200 engineers in the coming 12 to 24 months. A new Delhi office will also be established to bolster the company’s go-to-market and partner activities, complementing what is already in place in Bengaluru and the Pune Centre of Excellence, home to more than 550 staff.
What Will Proofpoint’s Hyderabad AI Security Centre Do?
What is on the agenda for the Hyderabad centre? It will be tasked with the technologies underpinning Proofpoint’s global AI security roadmap. This means work on AI governance to set enterprise policy, runtime protection for applications in use and the security of copilots and autonomous agents. They will also be looking at the Acuvity portfolio from the company’s recent acquisition.
It is a reflection of how the industry is changing. When AI enters the enterprise workflow, one has to defend not only against threats that employ it but the systems and applications themselves.
Why Proofpoint Is Betting Big on India
Sumit Dhawan, CEO of Proofpoint, notes the timing is right. “Our India business has tripled in the last year,” he says, pointing to double-digit numbers in new customer sign-ups. The momentum is being driven by a hunger for AI-led security and the kind of investment the company has made in sales, support and its partner ecosystem, as well as India’s standing as an R&D and engineering hub.
In a sense, the expansion marks a change in perception for global cybersecurity firms; India is no longer viewed as just a place for delivery and support but as where core technology is built.
Why AI Adoption Is Creating a New Cybersecurity Challenge
There is a new challenge to be met with the rise of AI adoption, according to Proofpoint’s leadership in India. There are mounting questions about how to govern AI tools, whether they have been sanctioned by the company or brought in by an employee on his own, and how to keep tabs on the data they consume.
Research from Proofpoint puts some numbers to it: in the next year, 67 per cent of Indian organisations will be putting more protections in place for AI, while 71 per cent plan to open up collaboration channels. All of this points to a market for integrated security that covers everything from email and insider risk to AI governance.
What Proofpoint’s India Expansion Means for AI Security
With these latest investments, Proofpoint’s presence in the country will now cover Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi. The message is plain. As Indian enterprises get on board with AI, the scope of cybersecurity is widening. Securing the AI itself is fast becoming the next big fight, and India is where much of the technology for it is being made.
