Samsung, which had previously announced that it will hire 2,500 engineers by 2020, has already onboarded 1,000 engineers each in 2017 and 2018.

Samsung on Wednesday said it will hire around 1,200 engineering graduates this year from India’s premier institutions, such as IITs, NITs and IISc, for its research and development (R&D) centres in the country.

The company plans to hire engineers for its R&D centres in Bengaluru, Noida and Delhi, and these employees will work on domains such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, image processing, cloud, internet of things, recognition systems, data analysis, OnDevice AI, mobile communications, networks, and user interface and user experience.

Samsung will hire students from multiple streams including computer science, electronics and communications, electrical engineering, mathematics and computing, instrumentation and information technology, the company said in a statement.

“This year, we plan to hire over 1,200 engineers and have already extended 340 PPOs (pre-placement offers) to engineers at IITs and other top institutions,” Samsung India Head (Human Resources) Sameer Wadhawan said.

PPOs are made in advance and the student joins the company after the completion of his or her course.

Samsung, which had previously announced that it will hire 2,500 engineers by 2020, has already onboarded 1,000 engineers each in 2017 and 2018.

For this year’s hiring, the South Korean electronics major is looking at hiring from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Delhi, Kanpur, Mumbai, Chennai, Guwahati, Kharagpur, BHU, Roorkie, Pallakad, Tirupati, Indore, Gandhinagar, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Mandi, Jodhpur and Bhilai.

The company will also explore tapping into talent from other top engineering colleges such as BITS Pilani, IIITs, National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Delhi Technological University, Manipal Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore.

“As a leading technology company, our endeavour has always been to nurture our talent by providing them the most-suitable exposure. We are proud of the milestones achieved by our engineers in India and are committed to hiring more talent from the country,” he said.