US-based financial services firm JP Morgan will recruit 6,000 individuals in Bengaluru this year across technology, operations, and other functions, as part of its digital transformation drive.

The investment bank, which currently employs more than 40,000 people in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Hyderabad in technology and operations, has taken up an additional 1.1 million square feet in Bengaluru's Embassy Tech Village, according to a report by The Times of India.

The hiring areas will include artificial intelligence and machine learning, cyber security, cloud, architecture, data engineering, and data science, according to JPMorgan Chase's Global Chief Information Officer Lori Beer.

The bank will also hire infrastructure software experts, as it has a significant base of private cloud platforms, the report added.  

JP Morgan, the largest bank in the United States, now spends $12 billion on technology annually, up from $9.5 billion in 2020, with the majority of the money going into "transform the bank" initiatives. In a recent investor call, CEO Jamie Dimon stated that the bank wants to migrate 30%-50% of its software and data to the cloud.

India's teams, according to Beer, work in a variety of sectors. "A number of our important collaborative teams are headquartered in India. "We have our India team utilising intelligence and transitioning to strategic platforms when it comes to generating new wealth capabilities for our users," she said. JP Morgan is investing in capabilities and systems to move beyond banking in commercial banking, according to the report.

The New York-headquartered bank recently said it’s become the first lender to ride into the metaverse and has opened a lounge in Decentraland, a blockchain-based virtual world.