Often flying under the radar, SAS Institute—a titan in analytics software—has quietly shaped global tech trends for nearly five decades. Founded as a university research project in the 1960s and incorporated in 1976, SAS has remained under the steady leadership of CEO James Goodnight for 49 years. Despite being one of the world’s largest privately held software firms, its low-profile approach belies a deep focus on research and development (R&D), a key reason for its enduring relevance through countless tech cycles.
Now, amid the AI revolution, SAS’s Pune R&D centre—established 25 years ago—has emerged as a strategic innovation engine. According to CTO Bryan Harris, Pune is not just the largest remote R&D site but a miniature version of SAS’s headquarters in Cary, North Carolina. With over 1,000 employees in India, including 800+ developers, the centre contributes to every layer of SAS’s three-pronged AI offering: from the Viya platform to industry-specific solutions and plug-and-play AI models.
A notable product built with Pune’s heavy involvement is Customer Intelligence 360, which analyzes clickstream data in real-time to customize marketing outreach. Pune also anchors SAS’s fraud and risk analytics for global banks, including high-performance models weighing 18 terabytes that deliver insights in milliseconds.
Beyond code, SAS India is taking on strategic roles, from platform design to model governance. With half of SAS’s revenue coming from outside the Americas, its Indian operations are critical to servicing global financial institutions. Harris summed it up: “Pune is not just scaling up—it’s stepping up.”
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