Technology has become the currency of national sovereignty. A nation’s freedom in trade, security and diplomacy is increasingly determined by its position in critical technology value chains. For India, innovation is a strategic necessity, a bridge between aspiration and execution. It must expand access for citizens, raise competitiveness for enterprises, reduce strategic vulnerability for the nation, and create capabilities the world cannot easily replace. It is central to Viksit Bharat.
One of the most significant shifts of the last decade has been Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sustained emphasis on making innovation a national mission. Initiatives such as Startup India, IndiaAI Mission, ANRF, iDEX, BIRAC, IN-SPACe, Semicon India, Atal Tinkering Labs and the RDI Fund have built an institutional architecture for innovation, signalling that frontier technology is central to national development. Our higher education institutions, such as the IITs and IISc, supported by the Ministry of Education, are ready playgrounds for deep-tech talent and function as powerful incubators.
India’s first innovation decade built the runway. It widened participation through startups, incubators, digital public infrastructure, research missions, student hackathons and new capital pathways. The next decade must build mastery. We are innovation-dense; we must now become innovation-deep. Progress must be measured by capabilities mastered, critical dependencies reduced, global value chains entered with strength, and lives improved at scale.
India has demonstrated exceptional strength in applying and adapting technology. The next frontier is origination: Owning critical IP, controlling supply-chain chokepoints, building component depth, setting standards, and creating platforms that others build upon. India’s industrial R&D intensity is low by international standards. We must move from using the world’s technology well to building technologies the world uses. In every priority sector, we should ask: Do we own the science, the design, the data, the IP, the manufacturing process, the standards and the customer access?
For India’s next phase of innovation, the relationship between policy and market forces must be sequenced and calibrated to sector maturity. In nascent frontier sectors, policy must create anchor demand and absorb certain developmental risks. iDEX proved this: Structured procurement catalysed a defence innovation ecosystem that would not otherwise have existed. As sectors mature, industry must lead, while policy fills the gaps markets leave through long-horizon research, common standards and shared infrastructure that no single player can fund.
As India focuses on technology innovation for strategic sovereignty, we need to keep in mind that it does not mean technological autarky. Given India’s starting point, its national interests are best served through deep partnerships with like-minded nations offering complementary strengths. These are not concessions of ambition. They are a design principle for reaching the frontier faster, squarely in India’s enlightened self-interest. Strategic sovereignty means collaborating from confidence, not dependence. The India-France Year of Innovation is a template: Build mastery openly, selectively, based on mutual strength.
India’s large enterprises have a significant role to play in driving innovation beyond being first customers of the startup ecosystem. It is much more comprehensive: Investing in R&D, co-innovating with startups, integrating startups and MSMEs structurally into supply chains, making strategic investments in startups, and deploying engineering rigour, quality systems and global market access in service of the broader ecosystem.
At Tata Group, as we deepen our footprint in semiconductors, artificial intelligence, defence, clean energy and digital infrastructure, we are making the startup and MSME ecosystem integral to our growth. In every complex domain, the unit of innovation is not a product; it is an ecosystem. A semiconductor strategy needs design, materials, packaging and customers moving in concert. An electric vehicle needs a battery, charging network, software and financing to move together. Large companies that build with this understanding pull an entire ecosystem forward.
India cannot build mastery everywhere. The discipline is this: Apply rigorous criteria. What are the core socio-economic problems that need to be addressed — access to quality healthcare and education, sustainability, energy and food security? Which domains have irreducible domestic demand, providing a captive proving ground? Where do India’s talent and cost structure create advantages that others cannot replicate? Where does import dependence create genuine strategic exposure, becoming a lever an adversary could use in a crisis? Where is a technology young enough for near-parity competition? India’s goal: To identify the domains where the world cannot easily operate without us. For this, we need to concentrate innovation energy.
We must also confront technology’s double edge. AI can compress decades of progress in diagnostics and governance. However, deployed without careful design, it can also disrupt work, amplify bias and deepen inequality. India’s model must be net positive by design, augmenting capability, creating new jobs, and ensuring that the transition does not burden the weakest sections. The transition must be planned and managed with empathy through structured reskilling and redeployment, while ensuring that India does not lag in competitiveness.
Bharat Innovates 2026, organised by the Ministry of Education in France, is a declaration that India’s most ambitious innovators are ready for the world’s most demanding stage. More importantly, it is a collaboration bridge connecting Indian startups and research institutions with global investors, corporates, universities, research institutions and markets. Its promise is not only that the world will see what India is building, but that global partners will ask: What can we build with India?
To young innovators, researchers and entrepreneurs, the conditions have never been better. India is the world’s most concentrated laboratory for consequential innovation, where the hardest problems of human development and technological self-reliance must be solved together at a billion-person scale. The innovator who solves for India’s problems solves for much of the world. That is not a burden. It is the most powerful innovation brief on earth.
India’s innovation story will be written by a generation that chose mastery over mere participation, depth over dispersion, and purpose over convenience. That generation is ready. The moment is now.
The writer is chairman, Tata Sons
We must also confront technology’s double edge. AI can compress decades of progress in diagnostics and governance. Deployed without careful design, it can also disrupt work, amplify bias and deepen inequality.(Illustration: C R Sasikumar) 
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