India’s Finance Minister Places Quantum Among Next Major Infrastructure Investment Priorities

Insider Brief

• India’s next major infrastructure investments will include quantum technology, AI and semiconductor chips, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, according to the Hindustan Times.
• Sitharaman called for academia and industry to work together to build capabilities, although the report specified no new quantum funding allocation or investment timetable.
• She rejected claims that India had fallen behind in AI and quantum, saying stock-market listings were an inadequate measure of domestic technology activity.
• Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

India’s next major infrastructure investments will include quantum technology alongside artificial intelligence and semiconductor chips, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, according to the Hindustan Times.

Speaking at a fireside chat organized by the IIT Madras Alumni Association, Sitharaman called for academia and industry to work together to build capabilities in those fields. India needs to accelerate development of the hardware, skills and institutions required to use emerging technologies, the newspaper reported.

Her remarks place quantum technology within a broader push to develop India’s computing and industrial capabilities.

Sitharaman also rejected the suggestion that India had fallen behind in AI and quantum, questioning whether the presence of technology companies on public stock exchanges adequately reflected activity in those sectors.

“India is not lost on AI or quantum. Maybe ‘just not in the stock market’ cannot be an adequate measure to see what’s happening here. But mind you, that’s the world. We have to have these narratives also addressed, retorted, and maybe, to get the best out of the world, get yourselves listed also where you can,” she said.

Building Capacity

Sitharaman’s discussion of quantum came as part of a wider discussing about investment in technologies that require both physical infrastructure and trained workers. Her more detailed comments on hardware, teachers and workforce development concerned AI, according to the Hindustan Times.

She said India needed additional investment in computing hardware and educators who could help institutions continually update their teaching. She also emphasized the need to apply AI across different sectors of the economy.

Those remarks established the broader investment setting for her inclusion of quantum among the next infrastructure priorities.

Sitharaman asked academia and industry to help determine the scale and stage of investment required. The question, in her account, was how much to invest in AI and where to direct that spending, rather than whether India should pursue it.

She identified India’s micro, small and medium-sized enterprises as an important source of demand. Such businesses operate across manufacturing industries and increasingly need AI tools to improve productivity and compete with overseas counterparts, she said.

Visibility and Private Capital

Sitharaman linked perceptions of India’s technology progress partly to the limited number of AI companies listed on the National Stock Exchange of India and the Bombay Stock Exchange, according to the report.

She said several AI startups had already become unicorns, or were approaching that status, referring to privately held companies valued at $1 billion or more. She also noted that startups could be reluctant to list because of compliance requirements, while arguing that public listings brought advantages.

Her comments suggested that greater stock-market participation could make domestic technology activity more visible to international observers. However, the examples she discussed concerned AI companies; the report did not identify quantum businesses preparing to list.

Quantum’s dual use likely adds to its importance as an emerging technology, the finance minister indicated, Sitharaman pointed to defense production as an area for further public and private investment, particularly in unmanned systems and drones. India had expanded beyond its role as an importer to export a range of defense equipment, she said, while stressing that more work remained.

“India has already moved forward in being not just an importer…We are exporting defence equipment of different order, different size, vectors which you would never have imagined. But there is more to do in the defence production,” Sitharaman told the group.

The report did not specify a new quantum funding allocation, an investment timetable or particular projects that would receive support.