As India pursues global leadership in technology spanning diverse sectors from semiconductors to digital public infrastructure, the country’s concerted push to develop quantum technology has gone largely overlooked. India’s big bet on quantum has seen the central government draw on a remarkable array of tools – including federalism, a vibrant innovation ecosystem, ambitious educational initiatives, and proactive international partnerships – to position the emerging field as a cornerstone of India’s bid for global tech might.
India faces stiff competition from other countries with more robust scientific, tech, and financial ecosystems, but a policy that prioritizes the application of quantum tech to critical Indian sectors and pragmatically engages global partners will ensure that New Delhi’s bet pays off.
India’s recent policy efforts center on the National Quantum Mission, a flagship initiative approved in 2023 that will spend $730 million through 2031 to support the country’s budding quantum ecosystem. The mission identifies four applied domains – computing, communications, sensing, and materials and devices – which inform the respective research agendas of thematic hubs at public universities in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Mumbai. According to the vision laid out by the Indian government, these hubs will serve as central nodes for regional clusters of research groups and institutions, forming a nationwide network to propel India’s quantum tech aspirations.
Beyond research universities, the government has looked to leverage India’s private sector innovation ecosystem to develop national quantum competencies. In July 2025, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) launched a call for applications from startups working on quantum technology, offering funding, access to infrastructure, and linkages to scientific research mentors. The scheme hopes to replicate the success of startups like QNu Labs, a quantum key distribution firm founded in 2016 and incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
Furthermore, in an attempt to build a favorable policy environment across the country, the Indian central government has worked alongside state governments to launch ambitious quantum initiatives. The June 2025 approval of the Amaravati Quantum Valley, a tech park set to open next year in the capital city of Andhra Pradesh, exemplifies this growing synergy. U.S. tech giant IBM will partner with Tata to install India’s largest quantum computer, forming the core of a larger tech ecosystem to include critical infrastructure, research institutions, and training facilities.
Despite this progress, a realistic assessment demonstrates that India still faces an uphill climb to global competitiveness in quantum technology. As of 2025, the U.N.-designated International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, India lags behind other countries on a number of key metrics including government investment, where it ranks eighth.
While India accounts for an admirable share of research publications in quantum computing, coming third (5 percent) behind China (23 percent) and the United States (22 percent), the country has thus far failed to convert this research excellence into similar performance on patents and commercial applications. India will only face stiffer competition as other countries develop comprehensive quantum strategies. Since 2023, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland have all launched national quantum plans to compete for investment and talent.
India can capitalize on growing global interest in quantum tech by pursuing public and private sector cooperation with international partners. After all, India has a robust information technology sector and a large reserve of relatively inexpensive, technically skilled labor, alongside the political will to entice overseas investment through financial incentives and regulatory relaxation.
The founding role of IBM in the Amaravati Quantum Valley project can serve as a model for future collaborations. Even as headwinds in the India-U.S. bilateral relationship could complicate such efforts, New Delhi should facilitate collaboration with U.S. tech firms with large existing operations in India – like Microsoft, which reported a major quantum computing breakthrough in February 2025.
Beyond the United States, India can also look toward the European Union, which recently committed to deeper ties with India, and Japan, a quantum leader with a long history of commercial tie-ups in India. The race to advance quantum science and develop viable applications is not a zero-sum competition: these partnerships would deliver research and manufacturing benefits to all parties.
More importantly, India can realize its quantum ambitions by concentrating on applications that intersect with its strengths and long term priorities, as in the July 2025 partnership between two Indian firms to employ quantum communications in satellite technology. The fields of materials science and sensors – both critical in the development of defense technology – have already experienced significant disruptions from quantum advancements. Fusing defense and quantum research initiatives could help India toward its goal of indigenization, especially as emerging technologies become ever more important to modern warfare.
India should also look to use quantum technologies to bolster its strong pharmaceutical industry, as quantum computing begins to revolutionize drug development. Indian pharma is a significant global exporter of generic drugs, but harnessing the “quantum advantage” could transform the sector into a research and development powerhouse.
Lastly, as India seeks parity on artificial intelligence, integrating quantum computing and natural language processing holds the potential to outperform legacy models. India already has a strong research ecosystem, but committing policy attention and investment to the correct applications of quantum science will be essential to India’s aspirations.