India's recent announcement of a massive ₹1 trillion Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) Fund has ignited a crucial national conversation about the country's scientific future. According to Nasscom president Rajesh Nambiar, while the fund marks a significant and welcome shift in intent, it represents merely the opening move in a much larger redesign needed for India to become a global innovation leader.
The Dual-Engine Architecture: A Pivotal Shift
The government's RDI scheme, operationalized through the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), is designed to plug critical funding gaps. It establishes a dual-engine innovation architecture targeting different technology readiness levels (TRLs). The ANRF will provide grants for early-stage, foundational research (low-TRL science), while the RDI Fund will offer patient capital for translating, scaling, and commercializing higher-TRL projects.
This structure aims to bridge a long-standing chasm in India's innovation journey: the disconnect between scientific discovery in labs and scalable adoption by enterprises. By derisking research in mission-critical areas like electric vehicles (EVs), med-tech, AI for science, and 2-D materials, and by leveraging alternative investment funds and development finance institutions for commercialization, the framework hopes to 'crowd in' substantial private investment.
Beyond the Fund: The Systemic Hurdles to Overcome
However, Nambiar cautions that the financial architecture alone is insufficient. India's R&D intensity languishes at just 0.7% of GDP, starkly lower than China's over 2% and Israel, South Korea, and the USA's over 3%. For a nation with aspirations in AI, semiconductors, biotech, and space-tech, this gap threatens long-term competitiveness.
The core challenge is not a lack of ambition but an outdated institutional architecture. Persistent issues include data gaps, slow technology translation cycles, regulatory friction, and a scarcity of patient capital for DeepTech ventures. In a world where AI models, compute chains, and advanced materials are strategic national assets, reliance on external R&D jeopardizes India's sovereign capability and exposes its economy to global volatility.
Blueprint for a Redesigned R&D Operating System
To transform aspiration into measurable outcomes, Nambiar outlines essential systemic reforms required to maximize the impact of the ₹1 trillion fund:
1. Adopt a Globally Benchmarked Data Architecture: Effective policy needs clear visibility and real-time measurement of R&D inputs and outputs, moving beyond assumptions.
2. Create a Modern Science-to-Market Pipeline: India must accelerate pathways for technology transfer and IP licensing, ensuring procurement policies actively privilege domestic innovation.
3. Enable Risk-Taking Through Regulatory Sandboxes: Beyond fintech, sectoral sandboxes with clear guardrails are needed for compute, space, biotech, and AI safety to foster DeepTech experimentation.
4. Crowd In Patient Private Capital: Government capital must act as a catalyst. Outcome-linked incentives could be deployed to attract private co-investment in long-horizon, high-risk tech projects.
This moment is pivotal. Building a high-intensity domestic R&D ecosystem is fundamental for India to secure strategic autonomy, retain economic value, and future-proof its growth. The RDI Fund signals a vital move from cost-led participation to invention-led value capture. Yet, its ultimate success will be determined by how effectively the nation redesigns the broader ecosystem encompassing measurement, incentives, regulation, and private capital mobilization.
