Hyderabad: Streaming giant Netflix on Thursday opened its global visual effects hub in India with the launch of Eyeline Studios in Hyderabad’s Hitech City. This marks a major expansion of its production and innovation network.The new facility, spread over 32,000 square feet, is Eyeline’s fifth global hub after Los Angeles, Vancouver, Seoul and London. Though Netflix did not divulge its hiring plans, sources said around 300 people would be picked up by 2026 end. The company plans to hire specialised VFX talent.The Hyderabad centre will support high-end visual storytelling for productions around the world, positioning India as a key node in international production pipelines, Netflix added.Chief minister A Revanth Reddy, who inaugurated the facility along with IT & industries minister D Sridhar Babu, said Hyderabad was a natural home for Netflix and Eyeline because the city brought together creativity, technology and global talent.He also invited Netflix to set up its India corporate headquarters in the proposed Future City, saying the govt would allot a bigger space there. “Telangana is rising. Telangana means business,” he said.In a video message, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said India was one of the world’s most dynamic storytelling markets, with extraordinary creative voices, technical depth and production scale. He said Eyeline Hyderabad would contribute to the growing demand for advanced visual effects, supporting India’s ambitions in the animation, visual effects, gaming and comics (AVGC) sector.Eyeline Studios CEO Jeff Shapiro said India had long played a defining role in global visual effects because of the scale and depth of its talent and Hyderabad stood out for its technology backbone, engineering capability and film culture, making it an ideal base for long-term capability building.Sridhar Babu said Telangana was working in a structured manner to position Hyderabad as a global AVGC leader by building world-class infrastructure and a future-ready talent ecosystem. He said Netflix’s presence would expand opportunities for local creators and professionals while integrating the city more deeply into the global production economy.“With world-class production standards, advanced creative tools and innovation-driven workflows becoming part of the local ecosystem, young professionals in Telangana will gain access to future-ready skills and global opportunities,” he said, urging Netflix to collaborate with the Young India Skills University to build industry-aligned talent pipelines.Sanjay Jaju, secretary, Union ministry of information and broadcasting, said Hyderabad already had a strong AVGC base, with several major Hollywood studios having a presence in the city. He said the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies, set up in Mumbai last year, would soon have a regional campus in Hyderabad.Actor-producer Rana Daggubati said Hyderabad’s creative ecosystem had evolved dramatically over the past two decades, and Eyeline’s arrival marks another major step in the city’s rise as a future hub for artists, filmmakers and storytellers.
