India’s innovation ecosystem has recorded consistent and meaningful progress in recent years, positioning the country as a fast-emerging global innovation hub. According to the Economic Survey 2025–26 presented in Parliament, India advanced to the thirty-eighth position in the Global Innovation Index 2025, a significant rise from its sixty-sixth rank in 2019. This steady improvement reflects the impact of long-term policy focus on innovation, manufacturing, research, startups, and advanced technology.
The Survey highlights that government-led initiatives have played a central role in strengthening the country’s industrial and innovation capabilities. One of the most influential drivers has been the Production Linked Incentive program, which has significantly expanded domestic manufacturing capacity. The smartphone sector, in particular, has benefited from this push, with several global mobile phone brands relocating production facilities to India, transforming the country into a key manufacturing base.
By September 2025, investments under the incentive program exceeded twenty-four thousand million dollars, generating additional production and sales valued at more than two hundred twenty-five thousand million dollars. Beyond output growth, the initiative has also contributed to large-scale employment creation, supporting over one million two hundred sixty thousand jobs across direct and indirect roles.
The Economic Survey further notes that India now leads innovation performance among lower middle-income economies and holds the top position in the Central and Southern Asia region. Major cities such as Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai have emerged as global innovation hotspots, ranking among the world’s top fifty innovation-intensive clusters. This progress has been accompanied by a marked rise in overall innovation output across sectors.
India’s growing role in intellectual property creation was also underscored. In 2024, the country ranked fourth globally in trademark filings, sixth in patent applications, and seventh in industrial design registrations, reflecting increasing research activity and commercialization of ideas.
The Survey also emphasized strong momentum in the semiconductor sector. As of August 2025, ten semiconductor manufacturing and packaging projects had been approved across six states, representing investments of approximately nineteen thousand million dollars. Through national initiatives focused on semiconductor development, the government aims to establish a complete domestic semiconductor ecosystem, strengthening India’s position in high-value global technology supply chains.
