SAS Institute, the world's largest privately held software company, plans to increase its research and development staff in India to 200 next year.

"We continue to hire in India and all around the world. At present, we have 130 engineers at our Pune centre, and the number will go up to 200 next year," James H Goodnight, CEO, said on Monday.

As the world's top business intelligence software maker expands in India, it would like to stay put in Pune. "There is tremendous amount of talent in Pune with as many as 13 top-notch educational institutions. We are also working with universities for talent development," he said.

SAS is growing at 30 per cent in India, and has a sales presence in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.