The deep-tech ecosystem in India has been expanding rapidly over the past 20 years, thereby positioning itself as key component of innovation led growth. The country now hosts more than 3,000 DeepTech startups across domains such as agriculture, manufacturing, healthtech, space tech, semiconductors, AI, quantum technologies, biotech, and defence. Many of these startups are developing globally competitive IP instead of being service focused. Government has created multiple programs like iDEX, TDF, the National Quantum Mission, India Semiconductor Mission etc, which are creating strong demand and infrastructure for frontier innovation.
Academic community, especially IITs, IISc, and specialised research labs—have emerged as powerful startup creators, having produced hundreds of DeepTech ventures. Corporate R&D centres, global capability centres, and incubators have further integrated industry into the innovation network. Together, these shifts have transformed India from a consumer of advanced technologies into a fast-emerging global hub for high-science entrepreneurship, with increasing patent activity, startup investments, and product commercialization signalling the ecosystem’s maturity.
Having said that, the deep-tech ecosystem in India is still in its infancy when compared to the global peers like Israel, China, US, Europe etc and has a long road ahead. Some of the challenges being faced by ecosystem are:
Long R&D Cycle – deep-tech development require long R&D cycle and large amount of money, where technology is to be developed and matured. The investment community in India is focused on shorter cycles for the return which leads them to have primary focus on solution development in application domain. While Government of India is creating programs for deep-tech development, most of these programs also are for shorter duration which causes them to be focused on application aspect only. This mindset needs to be changed and larger amount of money needs to be made available for longer duration, for domestic technology development.
Fragmented Programs – different government department and ministries create and execute separate programs and there is no coordination. A coordinated approach will be able to make available larger funding and a unified governance framework, involving the technology players as well as users, thereby creating more effective R&D programs.
Lack of public procurement – while government departments and ministries can provide grant money for innovation programs, they are unable to make preferential procurement decisions for startups developing innovative solutions. This creates strong hindrance for startups to put their time and energy in long term R&D activities. By its definition, innovation will be untested and unproven, at least in beginning and need targeted procurement support from government departments.
Limited academic – industry engagement – while academic institutes do their research work, its actual adoption by industry is very limited. The reasons are many and vary from the research being undertaken without industry inputs, limited conversion of research into actual usable products, long cycles etc. Whatever the reasons, the outcome is that unlike advanced countries, we are unable to effectively create academic-industry collaboration for converting research into industrial products.
Talent constraints – deep-tech development work requires the developers to spend long time in one area while they build the expertise, but the mindset for developers is to work on different technologies to broaden their job opportunities. Due to this the required talent for deep-tech development remains in short supply, thereby hindering the product development.
The Sector Skill Council of Nasscom has created platform which provides the skilling as required by Indian industry and works with academic community to upskill the students, with the objective of addressing the talent constraint.
Lack of moonshot projects – even when government funding is available, it is very hard to undertake bold research projects. Innovation by its very definition means risk and it is illogical to expect that every project where bold outcomes are desired will be successful. There will be failures despite all the sincere efforts put in by the researchers and developers and the funding agencies need to understand that. They can put in strong governance and monitoring mechanism to ensure that sincere effort has been put in the project but when it doesn’t lead to complete success, that has to be accepted and taken forward in different manner. Unless we build the ecosystem where such challenges are addressed, we won’t be able to undertake the deep technology development activities and will continue to be reliant on other countries.
Risk-averse attitude – while departments like defence, space need access to latest indigenous technology, they are also risk averse and prefer tried and tested solutions for their adoption. This goes against building the innovation culture in the country.
While there are many challenges, there are many opportunities also. Following are some suggestions for driving the rapid growth of deep-tech ecosystem:
Government procurement from startups – while government has defined some incentives for startup procurements, those need to be enhanced. Departments need to compulsorily meet their startup procurement quota so that they make stronger effort. Also timely payment for MSME registered players as per RBI guidelines need to be made mandatory, with penalties for non-compliance.
Unified coordination body from government – a unified body to drive the deep-tech development and adoption needs to be created. The body will have participation from the technology ministries and departments (e.g. MeitY, Ministry of Science and Technology et), user ministries (Railway, Industry, Road and Transport, Agriculture etc), key industry bodies, and interested enterprises looking for innovation adoption. They will jointly define the projects, work out the funding model and post development scaling.
The deep-tech ecosystem in India is at the cusp of exponential growth. Supported by government initiatives and required by enterprises, it is crucial to strengthen the coordination, address regulatory aspects and deepen public-private engagement.
As we push for homegrown technologies and solutions in different sectors, the deep-tech system will have to play the central role. A concerted, long-term approach will enable the nation to consolidate its position as a global leader in DeepTech innovation and contribute meaningfully to economic resilience, technological sovereignty, and national competitiveness.