Can India Move Beyond Tech Services to Build Technology for the World?

For over three decades, India has been synonymous with global tech services. From powering enterprise IT to running back-office operations for the world’s largest corporations, the country has carved out a formidable position in the global technology ecosystem. But as artificial intelligence reshapes how technology is built, deployed, and scaled, a critical question looms: can India move beyond being the world’s services hub to building technology for the world?

This question takes centre stage in Episode 6 of India for the World, a leadership podcast by Mint and BCG. Host Shouvik Das, Editor at Mint, is joined by Rajiv Gupta, Managing Director and Senior Partner at BCG, and Tiger Tyagarajan, former CEO of Genpact and Senior Advisor at Bain Capital, for a candid discussion on India’s $300 billion tech services industry, the $10 trillion global tech opportunity, and what it will take for India to lead the next phase of global technology.

The conversation spans India’s enduring strengths, emerging opportunities in AI and product-led innovation, the rise of global capability centres (GCCs), and the mindset shifts required to compete in a rapidly evolving global tech landscape.

Watch Episode 6 on YouTube

Key Stats and Insights from Episode 6

• $10 trillion is the estimated size of the global technology industry
  
  
• $1.6 trillion is the current size of the global tech services market, accounting for nearly 15% of the overall tech ecosystem
  
  
• $300 billion is the size of India’s tech services industry today, giving the country close to a 20% share of the global services market
  
  
• $2.5 trillion is the projected size of the global tech services industry by 2030, up from $1.6 trillion today
  
  
• $500 billion could be the size of India’s tech services market by 2030 if the country maintains its current global market share
  
  
• 7,00,000+ AI-certified professionals are based in India, making it the largest AI talent pool globally
  
  
• 3,000+ Global Capability Centres (GCCs) operate in India, with around 1,000 added between 2020 and 2025
  
  
• Around 50% of tech services firms are expected to successfully transition to AI-led, intelligence-driven delivery models

India’s Tech Services Story: Strong, Resilient, and Far from Over

The narrative that India’s tech services industry is in decline is one that Tiger Tyagarajan firmly rejects. Instead, he frames the moment as one of transformation rather than contraction.

“Every industry goes through phases where half the companies thrive and the other half struggle,” he notes. “That doesn’t mean the industry is dwindling. It means the stakes are higher.”

Rajiv Gupta adds context with scale-defining numbers. The global technology industry today is estimated at roughly $10 trillion, encompassing services, products, AI, robotics, and emerging technologies. Of this, tech services account for around $1.6 trillion. India commands nearly 20% of that services market, translating to a $300 billion industry built over decades since liberalisation.

This achievement, Rajiv emphasises, should not be understated. “India has done exceptionally well in a meaningful segment of the global tech market,” he says. “But the real question now is how we expand our addressable opportunity beyond that 15% slice.”

BCG estimates that global tech services spending could grow to $2.5 trillion by 2030. If India merely maintains its current market share, the sector could scale to a $500 billion opportunity. The challenge lies in whether Indian firms can adapt fast enough to retain, and potentially grow, that share in an AI-driven world.

Beyond Arbitrage: The Shift to Intelligence-Led Value

For years, India’s tech success has been associated with labour and cost arbitrage. But both speakers agree that this model is no longer sufficient on its own.

Tiger introduces the idea of “intelligence arbitrage” as the next frontier. Unlike traditional services, where value is tied to headcount, intelligence-led models reward learning, repetition, and scale. Each deployment of a solution makes it smarter, harder to replicate, and more valuable over time.

“The first time you deploy a solution, you learn something,” he explains. “By the fifth deployment, your intelligence advantage is very difficult for anyone else to copy.”

Crucially, India already possesses the raw ingredients for this shift. Decades of experience across industries, geographies, and functions have created deep problem-solving expertise. The opportunity now is to productise that knowledge, building repeatable solutions that reduce marginal costs and increase value with scale.

This, Rajiv argues, is where Indian tech firms must focus if they are to compete in the remaining 85% of the global tech market dominated by products, platforms, and AI-driven solutions.

AI Adoption at Scale: India’s Quiet Advantage

Artificial intelligence runs as a central thread throughout the episode, not as a buzzword but as a structural shift reshaping global technology.

One of India’s underappreciated strengths, Rajiv notes, is its ability to deploy technology at a population scale. From UPI to digital identity systems, India has repeatedly demonstrated that it can operationalise complex technology across millions of users, which is an advantage that translates well into AI adoption.

India also holds a significant position in global AI talent. According to Rajiv, India has over 7,00,000 AI-certified professionals, more than any other country. While the US leads in foundational research and China focuses largely on domestic priorities, global enterprises increasingly rely on Indian talent to deliver AI solutions at scale.

This trend is reinforced by the rapid expansion of global capability centres. Between 1992 and 2019, India added around 2,000 GCCs. In just the five years since 2020, another 1,000 have been established, of which many focused specifically on data engineering, AI, and advanced analytics. These centres are no longer back-office extensions but strategic hubs driving innovation for global corporations.

Products, Platforms, and the Reality of Innovation

A recurring theme in the discussion is the perceived hierarchy between product companies and services firms. Tiger challenges the notion that innovation is exclusive to product-led businesses.

“Innovation exists across the entire $10 trillion tech landscape,” he argues. “Connecting systems across continents and delivering complex outcomes remotely was innovation too.”

That said, both speakers agree that India must play a larger role in building scalable products and platforms. The path forward, however, may not lie in replicating the capital-intensive models of Silicon Valley’s largest firms.

Instead, the opportunity lies in building solutions on top of foundational technologies, solving real-world problems in healthcare, manufacturing, aerospace, energy, and defence. Many of these solutions are already being developed within India’s long-established engineering and R&D centres, which have quietly moved up the value chain over the past two decades.

The R&D Question: Investment, Mindset, and Talent

One of the sharpest debates in the episode centres on research and development. Indian tech services firms typically invest around 2–3% of revenues in R&D, compared to double-digit percentages at global product companies.

Tiger argues that R&D in services has often been narrowly defined. Experimentation, process redesign, and internal innovation labs, where failure is expected and learning is prioritised, have long existed within Indian firms, even if they were not labelled as R&D.

Rajiv, however, points to a structural gap. Fundamental research, particularly PhD-led work that leads to new architectures and breakthroughs, remains limited in India. Many of the technologies powering today’s AI boom trace their origins to university research ecosystems in the US.

Both agree that closing this gap will require more than corporate investment. It demands a coordinated effort across policy, academia, and industry, along with changes in pedagogy, infrastructure, and incentives for long-term research.

Looking Ahead: India’s Tech Ecosystem in 2030

When asked to look ahead to the end of the decade, both speakers struck a note of cautious optimism. Tech services, they agree, will remain a cornerstone of India’s economy.

At the same time, product-led and intelligence-driven solutions emerging from India are likely to grow faster than the industry average, even if they remain smaller in absolute terms. Startups, particularly those founded by professionals with deep services experience, are expected to play a growing role in this transition.

“The real metric to watch,” Tiger notes, “is not absolute size but growth rate. If these segments grow at twice the industry average, compounding will do the rest.”

Final Thoughts: Scale Meets Solutions

India’s tech story is no longer just about cost efficiency or execution at scale. As this episode of India for the World makes clear, the next chapter will be defined by how effectively India combines its unmatched scale with intelligence, product thinking, and long-term investment in innovation.

The path forward is neither quick nor simple. But by building on its strengths while steadily expanding into higher-value domains, India has the opportunity not just to serve the global tech ecosystem, but also to help shape it

Note to readers: This article is part of Mint’s paid consumer connect Initiative. Mint assumes no editorial involvement or responsibility for errors, omissions, or content accuracy.

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