Bengaluru: EY plans to hire 14,000 people for its Global Delivery Services (GDS) centres in India as it plans to strengthen its technology and consultancy services delivery network.The audit and professional services major is looking to recruit more talent with expertise in advanced analytics and other highly-skilled professionals across its eight GDS centres in the country that already employ about 27,000 people. Deloitte and KPMG have announced plans to hire 40,000 and 8,000-9,000 people, respectively, to strengthen their India teams. Srinivasa Rao, global vice-chair at EY GDS, said the company expects to hire 14,000 people this financial year. He said GDS is globally seen as the “conduit” for all its outsourcing contracts.EY is looking to increase its workforce with emerging skills, given the sharp demand for digital transformation and innovation-led services from clients globally and in India, Rao said.“We arereaching for higher value talent. The areas we're looking at are advanced analytics, cybersecurity, automation and machine learning , and (we are) continuing attention around artificial intelligence .”Rao said EY's key areas of focus across the GDS facilities include advisory, client technology, and innovation among other services.With more businesses digitally transforming their operations, the search for talent in STEM domains is expected to accelerate , said Rajiv Memani, chairman at EY India.Memani said EY has a holistic approach to digital transformation, which is embedded across all its service offerings.At the same time, the professional services firm is seeing a dearth of talent for SAP implementation and developed something called a 'SAP innovation factory' inside GDS to bridge the talent gap through hiring and training.EY has opened a third Wavespace centre, or technology experience centre, in Bengaluru after Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai.The Bengaluru Wavespace will offer customised experiences to help companies explore disruptive growth strategies and technologies, and some of the best use cases.