PIB TrackerDeep-tech pre-summit opens at IIT Bombay
Bharat Innovates 2026 opens its deep-tech showcase with 137 startups, ahead of India's innovation debut at Nice, France — and behind it sits a ₹1 lakh crore R&D fund.
What happened
- The Bharat Innovates Deep-Tech Pre-Summit — a national showcase of India's most promising deep-technology ventures — was inaugurated at ASPIRE – IIT Bombay Research Park Foundation on 21 March 2026.
- The two-day event was opened by Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India and Chairperson of the PM's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC).
- 137 deep-tech startups were selected from over 3,000 applications across 13 thematic technology domains.
- The Pre-Summit is a precursor stage in the Bharat Innovates 2026 journey, which culminates at Nice, France, in June 2026 under the India–France Year of Innovation 2026.
- It is jointly steered by the Ministry of Education and the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA).
- Senior officials present included Prof. Abhay Karandikar (Secretary, Department of Science & Technology) and Prof. Shireesh Kedare (Director, IIT Bombay).
Background & context
"Deep tech" refers to ventures whose products rest on substantial scientific or engineering advances — quantum computing, advanced semiconductors, space and defence systems, biotechnology, advanced materials — rather than on a business-model tweak. These firms typically have long gestation, high capital intensity and high technical risk, which is precisely why patient, government-anchored capital matters to them; ordinary venture money tends to avoid the long, uncertain runway between a laboratory result and a sellable product. Bharat Innovates 2026 is the umbrella under which this Pre-Summit sits: a staged national programme that funnels India's strongest deep-tech ventures toward an international stage, the showcase at Nice in June 2026 timed to the India–France Year of Innovation 2026.
The Pre-Summit also served as the platform to frame the larger fiscal commitment behind it. Prof. Karandikar set out the scale of the ecosystem and the policy scaffolding now being built around it: India is described as the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, with roughly 2 lakh startups and about 125 unicorns — up sharply from only 24 unicorns in 2017–18. Within that, he placed the ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund, approved by the Union Cabinet in July 2025, as the financing engine meant to push private-sector R&D in sunrise and strategic sectors. The RDI Fund is designed to provide low-cost, long-tenure capital and equity support to private players — a deliberate attempt to correct India's historically low share of business-funded research compared with peer economies, where private industry, not the government, drives most R&D spending.
DST's own role in deep tech was spelled out: the department nurtures an estimated 30–40% of India's roughly 8,000–10,000 deep-tech startups through a cluster of national instruments — the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS), the National Quantum Mission (NQM), and NIDHI (the National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations). Bharat Innovates therefore is not a standalone event but a shop-window placed on top of this existing missions-and-funds architecture, with the Ministry of Education and the PSA's office providing the convening authority.
The institutional chain is worth keeping straight because UPSC tends to test exactly who reports to whom. The Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) heads an office within the government that advises the Prime Minister and the Cabinet on science and technology, and chairs PM-STIAC, the advisory council that frames national science missions. The Technology Development Board is a statutory body set up under the Technology Development Board Act, 1995, which provides financial assistance for the commercialisation of indigenous technology and the adaptation of imported technology — it sits under DST. BIRAC is a not-for-profit public-sector enterprise set up by the Department of Biotechnology to strengthen and empower emerging biotech enterprises. Both were named as the two managers of the single RDI corpus, meaning the same fund flows through a DST channel and a DBT channel depending on the sector. The venue, ASPIRE – IIT Bombay Research Park Foundation, is itself an academic-incubation platform, which is why the Pre-Summit lands at an institute rather than in a ministry hall — the programme is deliberately routed through the higher-education and research-park ecosystem.
For Prelims
- Event: Bharat Innovates Deep-Tech Pre-Summit, inaugurated 21 March 2026 at ASPIRE – IIT Bombay Research Park Foundation; a two-day showcase.
- Parent programme: Bharat Innovates 2026 — an initiative of the Ministry of Education with the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA); culminates at Nice, France, June 2026 under the India–France Year of Innovation 2026.
- Scale of selection: 137 startups from 3,000+ applications, across 13 thematic technology domains.
- 13 critical domains include Advanced Computing, Healthcare & MedTech, Space & Defence, Semiconductors, and Biotechnology (among others).
- RDI Fund: ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation Fund, approved by the Union Cabinet in July 2025; targets private-sector R&D via equity participation and long-term financing.
- RDI fund managers: the Technology Development Board (TDB) under DST, and BIRAC (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council) under DBT.
- Ecosystem facts: India = world's third-largest startup ecosystem; ~2 lakh startups; ~125 unicorns (24 in 2017–18); an estimated 8,000–10,000 deep-tech startups.
- DST's deep-tech instruments: NM-ICPS (cyber-physical systems), National Quantum Mission, and NIDHI — together nurturing ~30–40% of India's deep-tech startups.
- Who inaugurated: Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood — Principal Scientific Adviser and Chairperson, PM-STIAC.
The DST deep-tech set to hold together: (1) National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) — runs a network of Technology Innovation Hubs; (2) National Quantum Mission — targets quantum computing, communication, sensing and materials; (3) NIDHI — the umbrella for incubation, seed support and accelerators. Add the two RDI fund managers — TDB (a statutory board under DST, financing commercialisation of indigenous technology) and BIRAC (a not-for-profit public-sector enterprise under DBT, supporting biotech innovation). Knowing which body sits under which department (TDB → DST; BIRAC → DBT; both serving one RDI Fund) is the classic "match the pairs" trap.
Why it matters
The problem the announcement speaks to is India's thin private-sector research base. India's gross expenditure on R&D has long been dominated by government spending, with business contributing a smaller share than in advanced economies — the opposite of the pattern in countries that lead in deep tech. Deep-tech firms are exactly the cases where this gap bites hardest: their products need years of capital before revenue, so they fall through the cracks between grant funding (which ends at the lab) and commercial venture capital (which wants quicker returns). The ₹1 lakh crore RDI Fund is positioned as the bridge across that "valley of death," supplying patient equity and long-tenure finance routed through TDB and BIRAC.
Bharat Innovates 2026 attacks a second, softer constraint — visibility and market access. By curating 137 ventures down from 3,000-plus applicants and giving them a domestic stage now and an international one at Nice in June 2026, the programme tries to connect Indian deep-tech firms with global investors, partners and customers, while signalling that strategic domains — semiconductors, space and defence, healthcare, advanced computing, biotechnology — are national priorities. The France link is also a foreign-policy instrument: the India–France Year of Innovation 2026 turns a science-and-technology showcase into a plank of a strategic bilateral partnership, where co-development in defence, space and critical technologies is already a theme.