Tarun Mehta
Co-Chairman, CII Unicorn Forum and Co-founder & CEO, Ather Energy
India’s Next Big Leap: Leading Global Hardware Innovation
For over two decades, India’s tech story has been synonymous with software. In 2024, the industry
generated over $194 billion in revenue, mostly from IT and software services. But as we look to the
future, the country’s next big leap won’t be written in code. It’ll be built in factories, labs, and workshops
across India.
We are at the precipice of a new chapter: India’s pivot from a services-oriented economy to a hardware innovation hub. This shift is not merely aspirational; it’s already unfolding, driven by an emerging wave of engineers and entrepreneurs determined to build products from the ground up, right here in India.
Hardware needs patient capital, strong manufacturing ecosystems, and the ability to handle complex integrations over long product cycles. This makes it a challenging, but ultimately a far more rewarding endeavour. India has historically lagged in this space, with many of its engineers working on narrow modules or niche functions within multinational companies (MNCs), often within the confines of global product standards.
But when Indian engineers are given the mandate to build entire systems, when they own not just parts of the problem but the whole product, the results are transformative. It forces a shift in thinking: from executing to inventing.
At the core of this transformation is intellectual property (IP), which goes beyond patents. It’s about creating leverage that compounds over time and helps ecosystems thrive. When you build vertically integrated companies that develop tech from the ground up, real IP starts to emerge. You’re not assembling parts, you’re engineering the entire stack. That’s where tight feedback loops, rapid iteration, and true innovation come from. By developing this kind of tech, you not only own IP, you can create standards. This matters because standards are how industries get built. Once a protocol is adopted across suppliers, manufacturers, and platforms, it reduces friction, improves interoperability, and sets a technological foundation for the next wave of innovation. India is finally in a position to define such standards, because we’re no longer just assembling; we’re inventing.
India today possibly has the largest R&D base in the world for electric two-wheelers. What India has managed to do with electric two-wheelers isn’t just an isolated success - it’s a masterclass in how to build a hardware industry from scratch. In under a decade, we’ve moved from importing EV components to locally producing full-stack electric vehicles. With a robust supply chain, indigenous technology, and a growing pool of skilled engineers, the EV two-wheeler sector has created a ripple effect across the country. The growth of manufacturers and expansion of supply chains have already resulted in thousands of skilled and semi-skilled jobs, showcasing the broader economic transformation driven by local innovation. This wasn’t accidental. It was made possible by a deliberate blend of policy incentives, patient capital, and bold founders who were willing to challenge the status quo. This playbook can be extended to other sectors where India has talent but lacks local product leadership. The opportunity is clear: replicate this blueprint, and India could become a global hardware hub across multiple industries.
The shift toward hardware isn’t a speculative future. It’s already happening. A new generation of Indian startups are designing products from scratch, investing in core R&D, and going deep into problems that blend software, hardware, and user experience in uniquely Indian ways.
India’s next big leap is no longer confined to software. While the country’s tech story has been defined by services for decades, the next decade belongs to product builders - especially in hardware. Yes, hardware is complex, capital-intensive, and slower to scale. But it's also where long-term economic value is created through IP, manufacturing, jobs, and standards. The right mix of talent, policy support, and investor backing, India has a chance to lead in the next wave of global hardware innovation.
On this National Startup Day, it is worth recognizing that the future of Indian entrepreneurship depends not just on scaling ideas quickly, but on building capabilities that endure, innovate, and lead globally.
We are at the precipice of a new chapter: India’s pivot from a services-oriented economy to a hardware innovation hub. This shift is not merely aspirational; it’s already unfolding, driven by an emerging wave of engineers and entrepreneurs determined to build products from the ground up, right here in India.
Hardware needs patient capital, strong manufacturing ecosystems, and the ability to handle complex integrations over long product cycles. This makes it a challenging, but ultimately a far more rewarding endeavour. India has historically lagged in this space, with many of its engineers working on narrow modules or niche functions within multinational companies (MNCs), often within the confines of global product standards.
But when Indian engineers are given the mandate to build entire systems, when they own not just parts of the problem but the whole product, the results are transformative. It forces a shift in thinking: from executing to inventing.
At the core of this transformation is intellectual property (IP), which goes beyond patents. It’s about creating leverage that compounds over time and helps ecosystems thrive. When you build vertically integrated companies that develop tech from the ground up, real IP starts to emerge. You’re not assembling parts, you’re engineering the entire stack. That’s where tight feedback loops, rapid iteration, and true innovation come from. By developing this kind of tech, you not only own IP, you can create standards. This matters because standards are how industries get built. Once a protocol is adopted across suppliers, manufacturers, and platforms, it reduces friction, improves interoperability, and sets a technological foundation for the next wave of innovation. India is finally in a position to define such standards, because we’re no longer just assembling; we’re inventing.
India today possibly has the largest R&D base in the world for electric two-wheelers. What India has managed to do with electric two-wheelers isn’t just an isolated success - it’s a masterclass in how to build a hardware industry from scratch. In under a decade, we’ve moved from importing EV components to locally producing full-stack electric vehicles. With a robust supply chain, indigenous technology, and a growing pool of skilled engineers, the EV two-wheeler sector has created a ripple effect across the country. The growth of manufacturers and expansion of supply chains have already resulted in thousands of skilled and semi-skilled jobs, showcasing the broader economic transformation driven by local innovation. This wasn’t accidental. It was made possible by a deliberate blend of policy incentives, patient capital, and bold founders who were willing to challenge the status quo. This playbook can be extended to other sectors where India has talent but lacks local product leadership. The opportunity is clear: replicate this blueprint, and India could become a global hardware hub across multiple industries.
The shift toward hardware isn’t a speculative future. It’s already happening. A new generation of Indian startups are designing products from scratch, investing in core R&D, and going deep into problems that blend software, hardware, and user experience in uniquely Indian ways.
India’s next big leap is no longer confined to software. While the country’s tech story has been defined by services for decades, the next decade belongs to product builders - especially in hardware. Yes, hardware is complex, capital-intensive, and slower to scale. But it's also where long-term economic value is created through IP, manufacturing, jobs, and standards. The right mix of talent, policy support, and investor backing, India has a chance to lead in the next wave of global hardware innovation.
On this National Startup Day, it is worth recognizing that the future of Indian entrepreneurship depends not just on scaling ideas quickly, but on building capabilities that endure, innovate, and lead globally.
