As India heads into Union Budget 2026, industry voices across electronics, digital infrastructure, AI, cybersecurity, startups, and enterprise technology are calling for policy continuity combined with deeper structural reforms to sustain long-term growth, competitiveness, and resilience.
In the electronics sector, expectations are being shaped by global cost pressures rather than consumer taxation concerns. Nikita Kumawat, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Brandworks Technologies, notes that price volatility is largely supply-driven: “Electronics prices are under pressure globally due to rising costs of critical components such as semiconductors and memory chips, driven by AI-led demand and ongoing supply-chain constraints, rather than any direct consumer-level taxation. These pressures are being felt across the industry.”
She adds that Budget 2026 reflects a strategic pivot, saying it “signals a clear shift toward strengthening India’s electronics manufacturing ecosystem, with an emphasis on long-term value creation rather than short-term price interventions,” and underscores that “the next phase of India’s electronics growth lies in moving beyond assembly to integrated design, engineering, and scalable production.”
The digital infrastructure and video technology ecosystem is also watching the Budget closely. Diya Girish, Sales Head & Director, India and SAARC, Milestone Systems, sees the Budget’s direction as aligned with India’s digital ambitions: “The direction outlined in the Union Budget 2026 reflects India’s continued commitment to building a digitally resilient and innovation-led economy. A strong emphasis on next-generation infrastructure, enterprise digitalisation, and technology-enabled operations will be key to strengthening India’s long-term growth and global competitiveness. For organisations operating across complex environments, the focus on scalable digital frameworks and secure technology adoption creates meaningful opportunities to modernise operations while maintaining trust and reliability. At Milestone Systems, we see this as an important step toward enabling smarter, more connected ecosystems where video management software (VMS) plays a critical role in enhancing situational awareness, operational efficiency, and safety. As India advances its digital ambitions across sectors such as hospitals, airports, smart cities, infrastructure, industry, transportation, and enterprise ecosystems, we look forward to supporting this journey with flexible, future-ready video solutions that align with evolving business and security needs.”
Also read: Industry Lays Out Expectations Ahead of Union Budget 2026
From a global engineering and AI-led transformation lens, Piyush Jha, Group Vice President & Head – APAC at GlobalLogic, believes Budget 2026 could mark a decisive shift toward intelligence-first infrastructure: “As India prepares for the next phase of its growth journey, we see the upcoming Union Budget as a pivotal moment to move from digital-first to intelligence-first infrastructure. The progress made in AI, data platforms, and digital public infrastructure has laid a strong foundation; the next opportunity lies in scaling this intelligence into the physical world. Agentic AI is already enabling systems that can reason, decide, and act autonomously in digital environments. As this evolves into Physical AI, embedded across manufacturing, energy, mobility, healthcare, and urban infrastructure, it creates a powerful ‘Phygital’ (digital + physical) ecosystem where software intelligence continuously optimises real-world assets. India’s strength is its vast physical infrastructure footprint, now rapidly being digitised. Targeted policy support for AI-enabled data centres, robotics, edge intelligence, and incentives for AI adoption across traditional infrastructure can accelerate this transition, driving productivity, resilience, and global competitiveness. With the right focus on compute, talent, and responsible deployment, India can emerge not just as a consumer of AI but as a global leader in engineering intelligent systems that seamlessly connect the digital and physical worlds.”
Cybersecurity leaders, meanwhile, are urging sustained investment as India’s digital footprint expands. Heng Lee, Head of Government Affairs and Public Policy, Asia-Pacific and Japan at Kaspersky, points to both progress and persistent risk: “The Government of India’s sustained investments in digital public infrastructure and cybercrime response have helped strengthen the country’s overall cybersecurity resilience. Over the years, coordinated efforts to improve incident reporting, inter-agency cooperation, and national-level monitoring have contributed to a more structured response to cyber risks affecting citizens and organizations alike. At the same time, India’s expanding digital footprint continues to attract cybercriminal activity. According to our Threat Intelligence report, Indian users remain among the most targeted globally by web-based attacks, with phishing-led social engineering and malware delivery continuing to dominate the threat landscape. Looking ahead to Budget 2026, addressing structural issues such as the cybersecurity skills gap, rising ransomware activity, and the protection of critical infrastructure will require sustained and targeted investment. As digital transformation remains a key driver of economic growth and service delivery in India, prioritizing intelligence-led security, advanced threat detection, and workforce development will be essential.”
On the startup and deeptech front, Padmaja Ruparel, Co-founder, IAN Group, stresses that recent policy moves have created momentum that now needs consolidation: ”The recent government thrust on deeptech and the abrogation of the angel tax have had a catalytic effect on the Indian startup ecosystem. It has enabled investments in far riskier startups with patient capital. Budget 2026 is a great opportunity to further consolidate this momentum by strengthening the policy framework that promotes innovation, patient capital, and long-term value creation. Apart from funding, high-quality talent is the need for startups to build globally competitive innovation and businesses. Hence for startups, which are not cash rich to attract such talent, ESOPs are critical. This provides founders the currency they need to build a world-class team. For this, the ESOP regime in India needs a change: to make it simple and rational. It’s best to tax ESOPs when the holder sells the shares / ESOPs, rather than at the time of exercise. It ensures that tax is paid when the seller makes money. This will dramatically make Indian startups for global quality talent. And help build high-value companies in the country, where the founders and employees both share the wealth in the value they help create. Another area that is equally important is providing clarity on exits, secondary markets, and AIF structures, especially in the context of early-stage investors and angel funds that form the building blocks of new businesses. As India grows its deeptech ecosystem, there is also a need to revisit the definition of a ‘startup’ that does not account for innovation cycles that are longer in duration. A forward-looking Budget that provides clarity and promotes risk-taking will help India transition from a startup nation to a value creation nation.”
AI-led product companies are also looking for a sharper focus on sovereignty. Karthik K Raman, Head of Product, Flam AI, says: “Ahead of Union Budget 2026, the priority must be shifting India from AI adoption to AI sovereignty. With a $16.01 billion advertising market and over 800 million connected users, India is already operating at a massive scale. But to truly define the global AI-first marketing models of the future we need advanced infrastructure. We look forward to the Budget treating AI as critical public utility, unlocking faster scale through targeted GPU infrastructure, regulatory sandboxes for deep-tech, and sovereign compute capacity. With AI projected to add $1.7 trillion to our economy by 2035, the 2026 Budget is our moment to ensure that value is not just consumed in India, but computed and created in India, a vital step toward a Viksit Bharat.”
From the enterprise observability and resilience perspective, Arun Balasubramanian, Managing Director, India & SAARC, Dynatrace, highlights the need to future-proof digital systems as AI moves into production: “As India accelerates its digital journey, we hope the Union Budget places continued emphasis on building technology infrastructure that is reliable, secure, and resilient powered by agentic AI advancements. Digital systems now power everything from government welfare platforms and digital payments to manufacturing, logistics, and everyday customer services. Ensuring these systems work smoothly, securely, and without disruption is essential for India’s next stage of growth. We would welcome Budget measures that support the modernization of legacy digital systems through policy incentives, standards, and capability-building programs that strengthen operational resilience, security, and compliance readiness. As enterprises increasingly move AI from pilots to production, better visibility, automation, and monitoring become essential to address key barriers such as security risks, limited system transparency, and skills shortages highlighted across global organizations. Support for cloud adoption, data center expansion, and workforce development particularly in analytics, observability, and cyber-resilience will further strengthen India’s digital foundation, enabling APAC leaders to prioritize real-time insights, data quality checks, and human-AI collaboration. These initiatives can help government departments deliver more responsive citizen services, enable financial institutions and critical sectors to operate with confidence, and give businesses the assurance that they can innovate and scale without compromising stability or security.”
