Mphasis expands UK roots with leap into quantum computing

London: Mphasis is expanding its UK operation with a central London innovation hub that will provide its customers with the opportunity to jointly investigate the application of the latest technologies to their businesses.

The company emerged from the ashes of former IT outsourcing powerhouse EDS after HP’s 2016 breakup. It now specialises in application development, but offers a wider portfolio of services.

Its central London Innovation Hub, as it’s known, will include a centre of excellence in the burgeoning quantum technology space.

In January 2023, the Bengaluru-headquartered IT and BPO services firm, which specialises in developing cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) applications, announced it was expanding its UK operation by hiring 1,000 tech recruits in Leeds over a few years, to work at its tech hub there. It also has hundreds of tech staff in Scotland.

Mphasis was originally formed in June 2000 after the merger of the US-based IT consulting company Mphasis Corporation and the Indian IT services company BFL Software. In June 2006, EDS took control of the company and operated it as an independent unit. HP then took over EDS in 2008, and, by 2016 – when HP broke up – Mphasis went alone.

The innovation hub is another drive to increase its UK customer base, where it currently has about 60 mainly financial services customers. Mphasis wants to double its UK workforce in the next three years.

About 50% of its global revenue comes from the banking sector, but also works with tech, media and telecoms as well as logistics and airline.

Research shows that while there has been a big reduction in quantum computing investment, governments have been ploughing in funding.

HSBC wants to be at the forefront of quantum computing. It is looking at how it can manage collateral assets more efficiently using hybrid quantum computing.

Rolls Royce firm is one of several participating in a Digital Catapult programme looking at industrial applications for quantum computing.

It also has a small UK public sector business that’s only just beginning, according to Nitin Rakesh, CEO at Mphasis. “Our bread and butter business is software engineering, and we do a lot of transformation through the cloud,” he said. “Our new London innovation hub is a testimony to our commitment to the UK and its vibrant tech scene. This centre will be a focal point for developing next-generation solutions in AI, quantum computing and beyond.

“The intention is to take co-creation to our UK customers,” said Rakesh. “We want to take all the work that has been done by the likes of the large tech platforms, including AWS and Azure Salesforce, on tools which are available to enterprises and offer customers the sophistication they may lack to be able to apply them to their environments.”

The hub will also invite tech startups to work with Mphasis on developing their products for the enterprise sector.

Mphasis uses an operating model that integrates into the university network to harness expertise in the latest technologies being applied to the business world, such as quantum computing.

Siddharth Saxena, an academic at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, said: “Quantum Science has undergone a significant transformation in recent decades, evolving into tangible technological solutions. Quantum Computing has been at the forefront of this revolution, and we are now poised to witness the emergence of broader Quantum functionality, bearing towards a totally revolutionary step-change.”

Rakesh said quantum computing’s use in enterprises is still some time away, and currently only “experimental tech”.

Globally, Mphasis has about 33,000 employees, with 65% in India and a couple of thousand in Europe – mainly the UK and France, with a small centre in Poland.