Union Budget 2025: A Tech-Focused Outlook
As the government introduces the Union Budget 2025, it has garnered attention from tech enthusiasts for certain takeaways which are set to impact the technology landscape in India. The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, tabling the union budget, announced the allocation of Rs. 20,000 Crores for the research and innovation initiatives of the private sector. It is quite evident that the government is committed to nurturing cutting-edge research and development in India.
“In the next 5 years, under the PM Research Fellowship scheme, we will provide 10,000 fellowships for technological research, in IITs and IISc with enhanced financial support,” she added.
In 2023, the government had announced the establishment of three Centres of Excellence (CoE) in Artificial Intelligence focused on healthcare, agriculture, and sustainable cities. The aim of these AI-CoEs is to create a new generation of job creators and wealth creators, be the solution providers of the world, and establish new paradigms of global public good. With the Union Budget 2025, the Finance Minister announced setting up a fourth CoE focused on education with a total outlay of Rs. 500 Crores.
What fascinates us more, is the announcement by the government to establish a deeptech-focused Fund of Funds (FoF) to foster the next-generation startups in India. By doing so, the government will be empowering visionary entrepreneurs and startups working on research and innovation to revolutionize industries.
For instance, in our own research efforts, we are working on enhancing the learning and holistic development of students in educational institutions by integrating emerging technologies like VR, AR, and the Metaverse into their education and thereby having them avail an interactive virtual environment. It is exciting to see the government adopting a forward-looking approach to provide a vital foundation for such ideas by easing financial constraints and allowing such ideas to take off.
Our company’s insights and reactions to the Union Budget 2025 have been featured in several prominent news articles. We invite you to read more about our perspectives through the following links:
As promising as the budget looks on paper, it will be interesting to see how its provisions are implemented, and how both the government and businesses drive the technological progress to ignite a new era of technological sovereignty for India and the Indians.
