Next 10 years going to be even more exciting for India’s tech journey: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

New Delhi, May 20 – After a robust decade of innovation and digital growth, the next 10 years will see India on the global map for emerging technologies, be it artificial intelligence (AI) or high-performance computing, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said here on Monday.

The areas of focus for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for the next decade clearly are electronics and microelectronics manufacturing, AI, telecom, high-performance computing, semiconductors, cybersecurity, automotive and EVs.

“This is a whole vision that our prime minister has in terms of taking this whole tech innovation and digital economy forward. I think the next 10 years are going to be even more exciting than the last decade,” he told a gathering of startup/unicorn founders and innovators during the ‘Digital Bharat, Viksit Bharat’ event.

The Prime Minister has announced Rs 1 lakh crore (about $12 billion) capital into the research and innovation fund that will go towards science research and development (R&D).

“For the next wave of startups, PM Modi has announced a Rs 20,000 crore India AI mission, which will include creating the AI compute infrastructure,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar said.

PM Modi recently laid the foundation stone for semiconductor plants worth over Rs 1.25 lakh crore.

“In 2014, we were essentially a digital economy that was about 4 per cent of the GDP. We were essentially the back-office to the world,” said the minister.

The digital economy in India today is growing at 2.8 times due to innovation.

“We are already the fastest-growing digital economy in the world and are aiming to become a trillion dollar digital economy by 2030,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar added.