Table of contents
The Indian ecosystem, which has developed from assisting the world during the infamous Y2K catastrophe (1) to assuring the business resilience of the world during the pandemic, has played a crucial part in functioning as an innovative powerhouse for the world.
According to the Global Innovation Index ranking (2), India is the most innovative nation in central and south Asia, with a presence in over 100 nations and a workforce of over 150 nationalities.
India's strong suit is its development of inclusive public technologies, where no other nation has used and designed technology for the greater good of society as India has. This has attracted attention from around the world, as Google cited India's Unified Payments Interface UPI (3) when proposing an inter-bank settlement system in the US and shared its lessons learned and how the West should model this after it.
The government's decision to reexamine the data privacy law has to be regarded as a wise one given that India has now risen to become one of the top two or three software economies in the world and a software superpower. In the last 24 months, it has made five years' worth of digital advancement, which is a remarkable jump in the global economy.
India has been a significant source of software talent around the world and a great creator of software intellectual property, with data stack being one of the key components. This is an extraordinary accomplishment that now suggests India is well positioned to become one of the great data capitals of the world and further cement its status.
Due to its concentration on technology and service delivery, ease of doing business, upmarket infrastructure, favorable demographics, a strong startup ecosystem, and a vast pool of digital talent, it aspires to become the world's innovation hub. Today, Indian technology companies play a significant role in the world economy.
India: The software superpower
According to data released by the US Department of State (4), nearly 200,000 Indian students in the nation contribute $7.7 billion annually to the US economy, from the value chain all the way to end users. Indian tech firms invest in American talent and technology, combining it with global resources to create ground-breaking inventions.
Indian IT has contributed more than $103 billion in revenue and 207,000 jobs to the US economy since 2017. Many of the technologies combating the pandemic and the everyday and economic routine were created by the Indian technology industry during the pandemic.
In the US, there were over six open positions for every computer and math person who was available; in 2022, due to an increased demand for digitalization, there would be 11 open positions for every IT worker who is available. The globe is experiencing a skill deficit, and not just in the US, and the Indian technology sector is well-positioned to assist overcome the STEM gap (5) also India's a larger proportion of female STEM graduates than the West.
India is the largest tech hub, with $227 billion expected by the end of 2022, and not just tech services the software as a service SaaS movement, arising from India and built for the rest of the world is expected to generate $227 billion by the end of 2022. While the IT workforce is breaking down barriers of the urban-rural divide as the pace of digital transformation increases, industries today not only need engineers for metros but a large talent pool specializing in arts, healthcare, finance, and other niche domains.
India is the next Silicon Valley
India is in a great position to become the new Silicon Valley (6) thanks to the digital India movement, which has kept up its development of urban centers and promotion of a Silicon Valley entrepreneurial mentality. Two tech-savvy cities that serve as symbols of India's fast urbanization are Bengaluru in the south and Gurugram in the north.
Bengaluru (7), formerly known as an outsourcing hub, has succeeded in shedding its previous emphasis by embracing entrepreneurship and cutting-edge technology, elevating it to the position of India's tech capital. In 2018 alone, 153 new startups were founded in Bengaluru, and as innovation and speed have continued, a large talent pool has flooded the sector.
Gurugram (8) has morphed from a former agricultural barren into an urban sea of skyscrapers, luring multinational corporations and global tech giants like Google, Facebook, Zomato, Uber, Booking.com, and TripAdvisor as well as significant local businesses that have quickly established it as a hub for numerous services ranging from IT software and consulting to finance.
India already has the conditions and resources necessary to assume a leading role in the global technology state, but there are still some obstacles that must be removed before it can fully realize its internal potential. In addition to attracting more foreign investment and offering customized training programs, India must also work to retain its talent and build the necessary regulatory infrastructure.
What makes India an attractive destination for high-tech companies?
Nearly half of India's population is under 25 years old, and the country has one of the fastest expanding economies in the world. This rapid urbanization of the youth has increased their purchasing power, which has raised local demand for electronics. There is room for increased domestic production because 40% of these electrical devices are now imported.
A median factory worker in India makes $0.7 per hour, and since the epidemic, there has been a greater emphasis on resilience. Around 50% of the top 25 high-tech businesses by revenue have moved their supply chains and production capacity outside of China (9).
The Indian government is now promoting domestic manufacturing, industry-led research, and the development of skilled labor, along with several financial incentives for supporting these initiatives. It has also established a good flow of business and a regulatory environment for luring investments from high-tech companies into the nation.
6 trends that are defining the Indian Tech Industry in 2022
- Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
- Extended Digital Realities
- Privacy & Security over Everything
- Smart Wearables
- 5G
- Digital, Virtual, & Datafication
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Artificial intelligence (AI) has completely taken over the regimen and entire living and working for thinning the human workloads and effectively making human life easier, leading to the extreme popularity of devices based on AI & ML algorithms in smartphones, smart TVs, smartwatches, and even smart cars.
With major companies and startups now offering AI solutions for every fundamental human need, the majority of courses and applications are now being developed and focused on AI, and India taking greater advantage of this technology has led AI in India to define a tech trend of 2022. AI is a very broad trend that encompasses ubiquitous chatbots for smart fun games.
Extended Realities
With Indian startups and companies now concentrating on their digital drive incorporating material elements with XR, VR, AR, & MR while expanding their reach into the metaverse and plans centered on the virtual reality space and decentralized web 3.0, Extended Reality (XR) is an immersive technology that merges the physical and virtual worlds. Other technologies under Extended Reality include Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), and Virtual Reality (VR), which are already ruling the tech industry.
Cybersecurity
Since everything is digital now, individuals are more conscious of cybersecurity threats and are learning about them. However, the technology sector is also on the other side, witnessing new inventions and security applications that will help protect private data as the arising decentralized web 3.0, and Indian technophiles are starting to grasp the trend quickly and are onto the speed of catching up with the technological cybersecurity trend with multiple crash courses and other sources promoting high-quality education with the high-quality application.
Smart Wearables
Fitness trackers have already taken off on the global market, and it is anticipated that there will be an increase in the number of smart wearables that will make people's lives easier than they could have ever imagined as a result of the rise of digital technologies and the introduction of new gadgets and collaborations for making people lazy in 2022 by Indian tech-oriented firms. Smart wearables have etched their way to the top of becoming the tech trend in India in 2022 with the main focus of the tech sector on generating technical advancements and simplification everything we do.
5G
The introduction of 5G, a faster, smarter, and more effective wireless connection as the 5th Generation of internet technology, in 2022 increased the need for increasing sustainability, data volumes, and network speed. This trend was embraced the quickest with mobile devices and networking providers rapidly adapting to 5G India and providing services and systems. Devices with 5G connections have created the biggest tech trend in India.
Digital, Virtual, & Datafication
While scanners help convert paper documents, study notes, and even photo albums into digital forms, online gaming has created and made socializing feasible on a new and virtual level, connecting global audiences with India leading the terrain in every aspect, and this is considered the major and important trend that has ruled 2022 so far and proceeded as everything online even if its spirituality, A new application or device is released into the Indian market every day shaping the routine and making mankind lazier.
Indian women in Tech
Empowering women in tech, with approximately 662 million women who made exceptional progress in the world of jobs and work, India has achieved the most significant and positive change, which was then improved on its 2021 performance as India's share of professional and technical jobs increased. The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2022 (10) analyzes the gender gap between men and women throughout 146 countries, placing India on the 135th overall list for its progress in closing the gender gap across a variety of workforces.
India has also contributed to the country's share of women legislators, senior officials, and managers from 14.6% to 17.6%. A program called TechSaksham (11) was created for women in India's smaller towns and rural areas who are graduating from college but may not have the same advanced technological capabilities as graduates from urban areas. A program run by software companies Microsoft and SAP (12) in India is now allowing women graduates to gain practical industry skills in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, web design, and digital marketing, making the women in India tech capable.
The workforce in India is among the youngest in the world, and there is a significant gender gap when it comes to careers in STEM fields, which include science, technology, engineering, and math. Future jobs will require a lot of technological expertise, including cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Despite having a high percentage of female STEM graduates, just 14% of the scientists, engineers, and technicians working at India's research institutions are women.
According to SAP India and Microsoft India, they want to upskill 62,000 young women students from underprivileged regions for employment in technology. The program is being launched to assist over 2,500 students in 43 colleges across seven states, including Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.
India, a Technological powerhouse
Talent is what ultimately determines a country's competitive advantage in this digital world, whether it be becoming the next Silicon Valley, a software superpower, a tech destination, or a technological powerhouse. India, with its young, diverse, and digitally skilled talent pool, has mastered the key to reclaiming these titles and has the potential to lead the world in innovation and growth.
With all indicators and evidence suggesting that this decade would be India's technology decade, which is one big "endgame" to be remembered for a long time to come, the following 25 years will be a milestone for India's emergence as a technological and economic powerhouse of the globe.
