Currently India features in the news due to conflict with neighboring Pakistan. In a time when international trade is shifting, with new trade and tariff deals, India is also a key trading partner for North America as well as Europe. One reason is that while China is the leading manufacturing hub of Asia, India is the main deep tech nation.
The Deep Tech Index, conducted annually by the European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR) with the support of Nordic Capital, maps and evaluates the global deep tech landscape.
The USA has a very significant, and slowly reducing, deep tech lead. There are also three additional nations which hold a significant share of global deep tech, namely the UK, Canada and India.
Strikingly, all four countries which each hold a significant share of global deep tech companies have an Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, as the four are made up of the UK and its major colonies.
A number of other nations in the world also host world-leading deep tech companies. Examples are Germany, Switzerland, China, and Sweden. However, these nations individually have just one or a couple of percent of the world´s 500 leading deep tech companies.
China very likely will rise in the deep tech competition, but while some of the most advanced manufacturing in the world is carried out cost effectively in the country, deep tech progress is still something that China is behind India.
There are five urban regions in India with multiple world-leading deep tech companies. New Delhi and Mumbai are alongside Singapore the leading deep tech centers of all Asia. Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad are other important centers for world leading deep tech development.
Artificial intelligence development is focused to New Delhi and Mumbai. World leading clean energy companies exist in New Delhi, Bengaluru as well as Mumbai. Clean tech, such as recycling, is another important technology area, of which Hyderabad and Jaipur are important global centers. New Delhi also hosts deep tech development of biotechnology.
Photonic and electronic is another strength of India, with Bengaluru, New Delhi and Mumbai all being important global centers in this area. Bengaluru as well as New Delhi excel in robotic & communication deep tech. Pharmaceutical deep tech is centered at Mumbai, while fintech is focused to Chennai. New Delhi, Mumbai as well as Ahmedabad host world leading companies in space & advanced materials. India has a cost-effective space industry.
Currently India hosts 5 percent of the world´s leading 500 deep tech companies. The country is also home to 5 of the world´s top 100 universities in engineering & technology, according to the QS World University Ranking. All five of the top Indian schools in technology are Indian Institute of Technology centers, namely in Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Kharagpur and Kanpur.
India's real strength is that essentially all the world´s leading technology institutes – be it in Stockholm, Santa Barbara, Cambridge or Sydney – are full of students and researchers from India. Similarly, Europe as well as the USA have many Indian talents in technology areas. European decision makers are eager to sharpen their competitive edge compared to the USA, when it comes to attracting top talents from India.
In a way, talents are India's most important export. The universities and tech companies in Europe and North America are full of talented individuals from India. India itself has long had trade relations with the West, with some Indian companies over time becoming global technology leaders. This country with growing population does need numerous policy reforms, such as strengthening private property rights and raising education levels to compete with places such as China, Singapore and South Korea which excel in the PISA school tests.
During coming years India can, if the nation avoids war and conflict, improve these policies and perhaps also open up for more trade with Europe. India's already impressive deep tech strengths are likely to continue growing over time.
Nima Sanandaji, Director, European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR)
Photo: Tech workers in Delhi, by ILO Asia-Pacific, via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.
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