India has the capability but still has a distance to cover and make an impact with globally recognised innovative consumer products.
Illustration: Chaitanya Dinesh Surpur
If you look at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), one of the world’s largest and most influential technology trade shows that showcases cutting-edge consumer electronics and innovation from major tech companies, you’ll see a growing number of Indian product companies participating.
The show offers a platform for businesses to demonstrate their latest products and technologies, network with industry leaders, and gain exposure to a global audience.At CES 2023, Indian companies had products on display, including advanced audio systems, AR/VR devices, and health care implant simulation software. At CES 2022, my startup Myelin Foundry had a video enhancement product on display, in addition to other products from India, including smart homes, smart metering and wellness.
India has the capability but still has a distance to cover and make an impact with globally recognised innovative consumer products. In industrial products as well, India has made a few contributions such as in commercial and passenger vehicles. Our defence exports are on the rise, touching $2 billion, and can grow ten-fold if innovation is added to our engineering capabilities.
India has even more in terms of raw capacity to deliver global-first products. It has several of the ingredients required to produce them, including an innovative talent pool and a growing market. There are, however, areas where India falls short, such as being a lead market with the spirit to fund and use new technologies.
To enable global-first product development at a national scale, the required ecosystem includes large corporations with research excellence, talent from deep-tech startups, high-quality research from academic institutions, and a conducive regulatory environment.
The arrowhead for global-first products are corporations with an ability to invest in R&D and with innovation as their DNA. The top R&D investing countries in terms of GDP in 2021 were South Korea, Israel, Japan, Switzerland and the US. These countries invest 3.25-4.25 percent of GDP in R&D.
Our R&D investments are 0.7 percent of GDP, of which a significant amount comes from the government. We need to increase the R&D investments to at least 2 percent of GDP. A significant percentage of that growth should come from the industry. India has many large corporations with the ability to invest in R&D. However, they have R&D programmes that are fragmented or short-term.
(This story appears in the 24 February, 2023 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)