The Deep-Tech Pivot

The start-up story has been in the limelight for over a decade, but it is time to shift focus from consumer tech to patent-led innovation

- Rakshit Kumar and Nabodita Ganguly

It is rare for a minister to admonish a public audience. And it is rarer still when that audience comprises members of an ecosystem whose success has been touted as its own making by the government.

And yet, the unthinkable happened when Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal took the stage at last month's Start-up Mahakumbh in New Delhi. The minister said that while India's start-ups focus on food delivery and lifestyle products, its Chinese counterparts are advancing robotics and machine learning.

"Wealth creation in the short term may happen with some of these conveniences. But are we looking at 'dukaandari' [shopkeeping] or are we looking to compete globally with our innovations?" Goyal said.

The comment came as a surprise, with many seeing it as an unfair criticism of the third-largest start-up ecosystem, globally. To be sure, the government has been signalling its inclination for deep tech for some years now. Senior leaders have said the country requires a third tech revolution—after the first in IT services and the second with the rise of consumer internet platforms, such as Flipkart and Zomato.

Underpinning this is the anxiety that without self-reliance, India would be at the mercy of other countries at a time of crisis.

Diagnosing the Problem

“Strategic autonomy is something that the government needs to worry about. And when you look at strategic autonomy, tech autonomy is the centre of it. Unless you own your technologies, over a period of time you will face situations where countries don’t allow access to certain technologies,” says Ajai Chowdhry, cofounder, HCL.