Software major Infosys on Wednesday said it would create 1,200 jobs and open three innovation hubs in Australia by 2020 to reduce digital skills gap.

"We are creating 1,200 new skilled jobs for graduates and professionals and opening three innovation hubs by 2020 to accelerate digital leadership for our clients in Australia," said the city-based IT behemoth in a statement here.

To meet Australia's growing demand for digital expertise, the $11-billion Indian firm formed an education ecosystem for providing learning opportunities.

"Of the 1,200 jobs, 40 per cent will be Australian university graduates from computer science and design. Academic partnerships will be strengthened to attract top graduate talent and ramp up skill building in the country," said the statement.

The hubs will also serve as a platform to enable the company co-create and co-innovate alongside clients, academia and the local governments to speed up innovation and upskilling of talent in emerging technologies and solutions.

"The approach provides us with a foundation to meet rising demand for expertise in areas like machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), user experience, cyber security, digital platforms, big data and cloud," said the statement.

Company's Vice-President for Australia and New Zealand Andrew Groth announced the initiatives to meet the growing demand for digital expertise in the presence of Australian Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews at the company's office in Sydney.

"The announcement is a milestone in our 20 year journey in Australia. As a key technology partner of Australian business, we are committed to accelerating digital skills in the region through skilled jobs, development of hubs and partnerships with academia," said Infosys Chief Operating Officer U.B. Pravin Rao.

The outsourcing firm has recruited 75 graduates so far, with half of them completing induction training for placement on strategic client projects.

"The expansion of our Australian team with innovation hubs are important to help our clients navigate in their digital journey by renewing their core business systems and building new solutions to realise growth," said Groth on the occasion.

In the company's novel initiative, graduates start their learning journey in its Sydney and Melbourne training centres. They can choose from high demand areas including artificial intelligence, machine learning, user experience, cyber security, cloud and big data.

"Infosys' decision to create 1,200 IT jobs in Australia by 2020 is vote of confidence in our economy and the coalition government's commitment to jobs of the future that a company of Infosys' global standing would make this kind of investment here," said Andrews in the statement.

As education is a collective effort, Groth said the company would work with the government, academia and local communities to help build and shape its next-generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.

"As part of our culture of learning and development, we have the world's largest corporate university to provide our people access to on-demand online learning platforms," Groth added.

The announcement of hiring 1,200 techies Down Under came after the company began constructing its US Education Centre on November 16 at Indianapolis in mid-west Indiana state for its employees at a cost of $35 million (Rs 252 crore).

The company committed on May 2, 2017 to hire about 10,000 American techies to bridge the IT skills gap in the US and set up six technology-cum-innovation hubs across North America by 2022-23.

Global clients across the US account for about 60 per cent of the company's software export revenue annually.

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