హైదరాబాద్ సైబరాబాద్‌గా ఎలా మారింది? హైటెక్ సిటీ కథ

How Hyderabad became Cyberabad: The HITEC City story

Today, if you head towards Madhapur, Gachibowli, Kondapur, and the financial district, you see glass buildings, metro trains, and millions of employees. But in the mid-1990s, this same area was filled with rocky hills, bushes, and small villages here and there. A single building symbolizes this change — Cyber Towers.

Where did the idea originate?

In the 1990s, Bengaluru had already earned the name "India's Silicon Valley". The then Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu government decided to bring the IT industry to Hyderabad. The government and L&T jointly undertook the "Hyderabad Information Technology and Engineering Consultancy City" — Hi-Tech City for short — project. In November 1998, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee inaugurated Cyber Towers. The building, which was completed in record time, made headlines at the time.

The arrival of Microsoft — a major turning point

Microsoft set up its development center in Hyderabad in 1998. It was one of the first major development centers the company had set up outside the US. The news of such a large company's arrival served as a signal to other companies. In the following years, companies like Oracle, Deloitte, IBM, TCS, Infosys, and Wipro built campuses. Companies like Google, Facebook (Meta), Apple, and Amazon also opened large offices in Hyderabad. The campus that Amazon opened in Gachibowli in 2019 is one of the largest privately owned buildings in the world for that company.

Role of educational institutions

Industry needs talent as well. IIIT Hyderabad was started in 1998 and Indian School of Business (ISB) in 2001. Along with old institutions like University of Hyderabad, JNTU, Osmania, these new institutions have provided skilled youth. Students from hundreds of engineering colleges in the Telugu states have become the backbone of this IT corridor.

Cyberabad — New City

As IT companies grew, the surrounding area developed into a separate city. The name "Cyberabad" was established for it. A separate police commissionerate was also formed. The Outer Ring Road, the Biodiversity Flyover, the Durgam Cheruvu Tiegala Bridge, the Hi-Tech City Metro Station — all these are part of this development.

After the formation of Telangana

Even after the formation of Telangana state in 2014, IT growth continued. A startup incubator named T-Hub and a prototyping center named T-Works were established. IT exports have been increasing every year. Even though political governments have changed, all governments have followed the same path in promoting the IT sector — that is a key reason for this success.

There are also challenges.

Rapid growth has also brought some problems. Traffic jams, rising rents, encroachment of ponds, and flooding during the monsoon are now daily problems for the people of Cyberabad. The development gap between the old city and the new IT corridor is also a matter of debate.

Conclusion

What started as a building is now a livelihood for millions of families. Youth from Telugu villages are working here, developing software for global companies. The next chapter will be about how Hyderabad will maintain this position in the coming era of artificial intelligence (AI).

Photo: Veera.sj / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)