The Union Budget 2025-26 is set to play a transformative role in shaping the future of India’s technology landscape. With a focus on artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, and sustainable growth, industry leaders are calling for bold measures to address critical challenges and capitalize on emerging opportunities. Stakeholders from across the tech ecosystem emphasize the need for enhanced investments in skill development, public-private partnerships, research and development, and infrastructure to propel India into global leadership in innovation. From fostering AI-driven startups to strengthening cyber defenses and advancing sustainability initiatives, this budget presents an opportunity to position India at the forefront of the global technology revolution.
Rajnish Gupta, Managing Director and Country Manager, Tenable India
A larger budgetary allocation is needed to fund comprehensive awareness campaigns, training initiatives, and upskilling programs. Partnerships with leading educational institutions can help develop specialized curricula that prepare talent for an AI-driven future. Additionally, government funding could incentivize the private sector to invest in robust skill development programs, attracting more talent to the industry and creating a resilient talent pipeline.
Investing in public-private partnerships is another vital step. Collaborative efforts between industry and government to roll out skill development initiatives in universities, coupled with internship opportunities for engineering students, can attract young professionals at scale and strengthen the talent pipeline for the cybersecurity sector.
Also read: Industry Experts Share Aspiration for Union Budget 2025
The National Cybersecurity Policy introduced in 2023, along with subsequent budget allocations for awareness-building, has set India on the right track to strengthening its cyber defenses. In 2024, the government launched significant R&D projects to promote proof of concepts and test beds for advancing cybersecurity. However, the country still lacks a comprehensive research base for technology and product development, testing, evaluation, and a robust certification framework to further enhance its cybersecurity posture.
While the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is collaborating with academia and R&D labs, there is a pressing need to expand these efforts. Public-private partnerships can play a critical role in accelerating this process through shared resources and expertise. Such collaborations can enable the creation of shared threat intelligence platforms, advancements in cloud and AI security, and cutting-edge research to address India’s evolving cyber threats. Increased budgetary allocations to incentivize public-private partnerships would significantly bolster India’s ability to deter rising cyber adversaries.
The 2025-26 budget presents a pivotal opportunity to strengthen India’s cybersecurity capabilities. By adopting strategic initiatives, India can emerge as a leader in the global cybersecurity landscape, addressing the skills gap and fostering innovation. Investing in preventative security, public-private partnerships and directing resources toward cyber resilience is not just an opportunity—it is an imperative.
Raj K Gopalakrishnan, Co-Founder and CEO, KOGO
Successive budgets have enabled the mushrooming of startups in India. At KOGO, we believe in AI’s transformative potential to not only drive India’s economic growth but also to unleash human potential. With AI taking center stage in economic policy across the world, it is incumbent upon India to foster innovation, and drive more investments towards AI startups into the country. As the 2025-26 Union budget announcement approaches, it is critical for the government to create a Deep Tech Fund to enable equity funding for startups looking for investments. A Deep Tech Fund with provisions for matching capital will encourage more investment into the sector. This will put India on the map for driving AI innovation and exporting it across the world.
Deep tech startups in India can benefit greatly if a common framework is created for businesses in the ecosystem and make way for a two-tiered funding approach — for the proof of concept and for a tested prototype. Startups driving AI innovations can also benefit from the government allowing CSR contributions to flow towards startup incubators or R&D projects in the STEM fields. This can drive greater investments into the technology ecosystem, and bridge the existing skills shortage, which has to be addressed with great speed. The implementation of a National Deep Tech Startup Policy, which addressed the challenges faced by these businesses in India, will also go a long way in promoting ease of doing business.
Sandeep Agarwal, India MD and Global CTO, Visionet
At Visionet, we believe that the Union budget for 2025-26 has to be oriented more towards the urban infrastructure and metro programs since these will be critical to the development of smart cities, facilitating connectivity and improving urban transport. At the same time, in case the ministry of finance sets aside resources for industry-academia research partnerships, that will enable game-changing developments across various fields such as medicine, education and production, thus placing India among the leaders in the global technology ecosystem. Equally important, is the government’s effort in providing manufacturing incentives to the economy with special focus on the MSME sector which would help build the country’s manufacturing capacities and foster more competitiveness in the environment. On the social front, the increase of preventive healthcare and reduction of import tariffs on advanced medical devices in particular, will not only enhance the public health status but also ensure that high quality treatment becomes affordable and accessible to many.
In addition, as an AI-driven company, we share confidence regarding the government’s initiatives aimed at AI-first leadership since those comprise support provision for Centers of Excellence, access to data, and AI upskilling programs. As AI is set to become the biggest driver of growth globally, these measures will put India in the forefront of AI research and applications. Such a target is also important with respect to skill development, more so for drivers such as IoT, blockchain and quantum computing. It is equally imperative to bolster initiatives like the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0 to keep Indians competitive in the growing digital economy. The importance of cybersecurity cannot be overemphasized. With 93% of Indian executives expecting a hike in the budgets for cybersecurity next year, we call upon the government to hasten the adoption of policies such as the National Data Governance Framework.
Another crucial component of this year’s budget will be the simplification of tax structures. For tech companies, especially those operating on tight profit margins and complex international structures, a streamlined tax filing process will be a game-changer. Clearer tax policies that support business growth and ease the compliance burden will be essential for the continued success of India’s digital economy.
Further, we believe that the sustained focus on sustainability is really important. While India continues to roll out new technology programs such as the Green Credit scheme, we are looking for more resources and tax breaks that would encourage tech firms to go green.
As a nation, the Indian technology community stands at a critical juncture since we are poised to become a leader in the technology world and the support of the government through this budget can alter that trajectory significantly. We have a positive outlook on policies that fully take advantage of the capabilities we possess while taking us toward the technologies that would define the future.
