For fifty years, India's technology identity was defined by services — talented engineers delivering work designed elsewhere, at competitive cost. That identity is changing fundamentally, and faster than most global observers have recognised.

India is now the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, with over 1,17,000 DPIIT-recognised startups as of 2025. An increasing proportion are building software products — SaaS platforms, developer tools, vertical AI applications — designed in India and sold globally.

For enterprises building digital products, this has a direct implication: the cost-vs-quality trade-off that historically pushed product development to the US or Europe no longer applies in the same way.