India readies $25 billion for deep tech investment push

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Highlights

India commits $11 billion under the Research Development Infrastructure Fund, with capital from private sector totaling deep tech investment to approximately $25 billion.
U.S. and Chinese export controls and tariffs are spurring India to advance its domestic deep tech sector, increasing urgency for local AI and semiconductor capabilities.
Indian deep tech firms such as Emergent, Skyroot, and Sarvam reached unicorn status in 2024, reflecting accelerating innovation and movement toward commercial scale.

Funding plan and strategic rationale

As reported by CNBC, the Indian government has committed $11 billion under the Research Development Infrastructure Fund, an amount that Rajat Tandon, president of the Indian Venture and Alternative Capital Association, says will be matched by venture capital and private equity fund managers.

Tandon says another $3 billion to $4 billion will be added, taking the total capital available for deep tech investment to about $25 billion. He told CNBC that India invested $11.6 billion in deep tech over the past decade, highlighting the larger scale now being assembled for the sector.

Deep tech is used to describe start-ups working in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, drones and space technology. Industry figures say the new push reflects a growing view in India that frontier technologies are becoming critical as global political and trade frictions intensify.

Export controls and market implications

China and the U.S. lead the global AI race, but India views both relationships through a strategic lens. Chinese technology faces suspicion in India, while U.S. export restrictions raise concerns about the reliability of access to advanced tools and models.

Anandamoy Roychowdhury, managing director of Crane Venture Partners, says tariffs and restrictions from the U.S. could support India’s domestic deep tech segment by reinforcing the need to build local companies. Those concerns gained urgency in June, when Anthropic disabled access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for foreign nationals in compliance with a U.S. export-control directive.

Investors and founders attending SuperReturn Asia say India’s deep tech ecosystem remains at an early stage, but they see scope for global champions as commercialization improves. Shweta Rajpal Kohli, president and chief executive of Startup Policy Forum, says innovation is accelerating sharply, and companies are beginning to move from prototype development to real commercial scale, with Emergent, Skyroot and Sarvam reaching unicorn valuations earlier this year.

In our earlier coverage of Anthropic’s planned IPO, we detailed how the Claude developer scaled from early fundraising to massive late-stage rounds that propelled its valuation and positioned it as a potential first public listing among frontier AI labs. We also noted that the filing highlighted both blockbuster growth expectations and key investor risks, including heavy infrastructure costs and reliance on a concentrated customer base.

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