Every dialogue of Indian science and know-how follows a well-recognized script. India’s Gross Expenditure on R&D is caught at 0.64 per cent of GDP. The non-public sector will not make investments. We’re falling behind.
The Economic Survey 2025-26 itself repeats this prognosis, as have earlier Surveys, yr after yr.
But there’s one other dataset that tells a distinct story.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Critical Technology Tracker, up to date in December 2025, exhibits that India now ranks among the top five nations in 50 of 74 important applied sciences. This is up from 43 applied sciences within the earlier yr’s replace.
In the newest replace, India has overtaken the United States because the second-ranked nation in 5 applied sciences.
Let that sink in. India — with its 0.64 per cent GERD, its “risk-averse” non-public sector, its perennial lament concerning the lab-to-land hole — is now a top-five analysis energy in two-thirds of the applied sciences that can outline the twenty-first century.
What the Tracker Actually Measures
ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker does not measure industrial functionality or industrial deployment. It measures one thing extra particular and arguably extra forward-looking: high-impact analysis output — the highest 10 per cent most-cited papers in every know-how discipline.
This is a number one indicator. Countries that dominate high-impact analysis immediately are prone to dominate technological functionality tomorrow. It’s why China’s rise within the tracker over the previous twenty years — from main in 3 of 64 applied sciences in 2003-07 to 66 of 74 immediately — has set off alarm bells in Washington, Canberra, and Brussels.
India’s trajectory, whereas much less dramatic than China’s, is hanging in its personal proper. According to ASPI, India is now “emerging as a key centre of global research innovation and excellence, establishing its position as an S&T power.”
The knowledge exhibits India within the prime 5 for applied sciences spanning:
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Defence and aerospace: third in superior plane engines, autonomous underwater automobiles
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Quantum: third in post-quantum cryptography, fourth in quantum sensors
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Biotechnology: second in organic manufacturing, third in novel antibiotics and antivirals
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AI and communications: second in mesh networks, third in AI algorithms and pure language processing
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(*50*) supplies: second in superior composites and good supplies
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Energy: second in biofuels, third in supercapacitors, fourth in hydrogen and nuclear
In biofuels analysis particularly, ASPI notes that India “seems poised to overtake China in its publication rate within the next few years.” If that occurs, it might mark the one know-how within the tracker the place the lead nation is neither the US nor China.
The Paradox
How will we reconcile two seemingly contradictory details?
One, India’s R&D spending as a share of GDP is among the many lowest of any main financial system, has barely moved in twenty years, and is dominated by authorities moderately than non-public funding.
Two, India’s high-impact analysis output is rising quicker than nearly another nation’s, and it now ranks within the prime 5 globally in most important applied sciences.
The reply lies in understanding what every metric captures — and what it misses.
R&D spending (GERD) measures inputs. The Critical Technology Tracker measures one particular output: frontier analysis. India seems to be getting an unusually excessive return on its analysis funding, at the very least as measured by citations and publications.
There are a number of potential explanations. India has a big pool of skilled scientists and engineers whose labour prices are decrease than in developed economies. Indian establishments have develop into higher built-in into world analysis networks, with collaborations that enhance quotation counts. And India’s sheer scale — the variety of researchers, universities, and publications — creates quantity that may translate into impression.
But this is the catch: analysis output isn’t the identical as technological functionality.
The Gap That Matters
The Economic Survey itself acknowledges this distinction, even when it does not join it to the ASPI knowledge. In Box VIII.6, it reproduces India’s rankings from the Critical Technology Tracker — however provides a vital caveat:
“Note: ASPI’s rankings are research-output based and indicate relative scientific leadership and do not necessarily capture industrial maturity, commercial deployment, or production capabilities.”
This is the hole that the Survey — and Indian coverage — is most frightened about.
India excels at Technology Readiness Levels 1-3: primary analysis, idea validation, proof of precept. It additionally has pockets of energy at TRL 7-9: commercialisation and deployment, significantly in sectors like IT companies, prescription drugs, and area.
What’s lacking is the center: TRL 4-6 — prototype growth, system testing, piloting at scale. This is the place analysis will get translated into merchandise, the place scientific management turns into industrial functionality.
The Survey calls this the “valley of death” for Indian innovation. It’s why India can rank second globally in organic manufacturing analysis however nonetheless import most of its medical gadgets. It’s why India is usually a chief in AI algorithm analysis however wrestle to deploy AI at scale in manufacturing or agriculture.
Two Stories, One Reality
The pessimistic story about Indian R&D isn’t unsuitable. Private sector funding is low. GERD has stagnated. The translation hole is actual. The Survey’s critique of Indian industry — that it prefers rent-seeking to capability-building — is correct.
But the optimistic story can also be not unsuitable. India’s analysis base is increasing quickly. Its scientists are producing work that the worldwide analysis neighborhood considers necessary. It is constructing the information inventory that would, with the appropriate institutional and industrial assist, develop into the inspiration for technological sovereignty.
The query is whether or not India can join these two realities.
The authorities’s reply is a set of recent establishments and funding mechanisms: the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), the Rs 1 lakh crore RDI Fund, mission-mode programmes in semiconductors, quantum, and inexperienced hydrogen. These are designed to bridge the valley — to drag analysis by way of to deployment.
But because the Survey itself notes, public funding can’t substitute for personal functionality. If Indian corporations proceed to want know-how licensing and import over R&D, in the event that they proceed to hunt safety moderately than construct competitiveness, then even a powerful analysis base won’t translate into industrial energy.
What the Data Demands
The ASPI knowledge ought to change the dialog about Indian science and know-how — however not in the way in which triumphalists would possibly hope.
It exhibits that India isn’t ranging from zero. It has analysis strengths throughout important domains. It has scientific expertise that produces globally recognised work. This is an asset — one which has been constructed over many years of public funding in universities, nationwide labs, and analysis councils.
But belongings have to be deployed. The problem isn’t producing extra papers. It is constructing the establishments — Translational Research Centres, industry-academia linkages, affected person capital for deep tech — that flip papers into prototypes, and prototypes into merchandise.
The Survey gestures at this when it proposes TRCs as “shared national assets for piloting and prototyping.” But it provides little element on how these would work, who would fund them, or how they might be ruled.
Meanwhile, China — which leads in 66 of 74 applied sciences within the ASPI tracker — is not only publishing papers. It is constructing fabs, deploying AI at scale, dominating battery provide chains, and manufacturing the {hardware} that powers the worldwide financial system. Research management has translated into industrial functionality, which has translated into geopolitical leverage.
India’s analysis rise is actual. But analysis alone doesn’t make a know-how energy. The subsequent part — the tougher part — is popping scientific energy into strategic functionality.
That would require extra than simply funding. It will want an atmosphere the place Indian corporations see R&D as a supply of aggressive benefit moderately than a value to be averted, and the place the state gives not simply subsidies however self-discipline.
Also Read: The Economic Survey’s Uncomfortable Verdict On Indian Industry