French video game co Ubisoft is expanding its Montreal operations with an investment of $373 million over the next seven years, and hiring of 500 employees to join its existing 2,650-person team.

The investment comes as the company announced that it plans to concentrate all the operations of online games for North, South and Central America in Montreal, and also manage the company’s global server infrastructures there.

In creating 500 new jobs, Ubisoft Montreal aims at becoming Ubisoft’s main hub for the operations and infrastructure of online games, a Ubisoft spokesperson told Playback.

The announcement was made Tuesday morning at the company’s Montreal headquarters and attended by a raft of Quebec politicians, including Quebec Premier Pauline Marois. The provincial government is providing a financial investment of $9.9 million as a non-refundable grant as part of the expansion, along with tax credit adjustments to recognize new industry jobs under the incentive, announced by Marois.

Those new jobs incorporate development, production and operations of emerging and next-generation games, and include roles like business intelligence analysts, mathematicians, telemetry experts and monetization specialists.

Ubisoft Montreal and Toronto CEO Yannis Mallat said in a statement that the company is expanding and putting new online operations in place in anticipation of new, next-gen experiences players expect.

“The imminent arrival of the next generation of consoles, the expansion of mobile platforms, the multiplication of connected, immersive, and social environments, and the strategic importance of the relationship between developers and players are profoundly transforming the video game industry”, said Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot in his own statement. “Today’s announcement allows us to anticipate the growth of our future needs with the main objective of strengthening proximity with our players and creating value for them.”

Known for games like Assassin’s Creed, Just Dance and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Ubisoft opened its Montreal operations in 1997 and operates in 28 countries worldwide.