As India strides toward a knowledge-driven economy, the newly launched Research and Development Infrastructure (RDI) Fund is a promising step toward transforming the nation’s innovation landscape. Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, AI is no longer just “Artificial Intelligence” but also “Atmanirbhar India.” The RDI Fund, aimed at strengthening India’s R&D backbone, has drawn praise from fund managers, incubators, and policy experts.
Yet, beneath the optimism lies a crucial truth: capital alone cannot sustain innovation. India’s experience over the past decade — particularly in deep-tech — has shown that simply injecting funds into start-ups without building the necessary ecosystem is ineffective. Many start-ups end up outsourcing prototyping, testing, or manufacturing to foreign countries like China, Taiwan, or the US, as India still lacks adequate domestic infrastructure.
Without robust labs, pilot plants, regulatory testbeds, and fabrication facilities, capital becomes a leaky pipe instead of a growth engine. Deep-tech ventures are different from consumer tech — they rely on advanced facilities and long-term support that individual entrepreneurs cannot build alone. This is especially true in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, where most of these resources are absent. Sectors like quantum communication or biopharma require not just seed funding but access to state-of-the-art labs, regulatory mentorship, and coordinated support from academia, industry, and Government. Importantly, India’s innovation path differs from that of the US. While America relies heavily on venture capital cycles and federal funding, India’s approach is more frugal, collaborative, and socially rooted. Matching dollar-for-dollar investments with global counterparts isn’t necessary.
What’s needed is a strategic, India-specific model that builds indigenous capacities aligned with national priorities. Globally, successful ecosystems — such as the US National Labs, Germany’s Fraunhofer Institutes, or initiatives under the US CHIPS and Science Act — combine financial incentives with physical infrastructure. These models offer domestic testing and validation facilities, helping innovations move from lab to market within their own economies. India must take a similar route. The RDI Fund should focus on building public R&D infrastructure: biotech validation centres, semiconductor fabrication units, and electronics testbeds. Success must not be measured by the number of start-ups funded, but by their relevance, technical excellence, and real-world impact.
Ministries must redefine success metrics — not based on grants distributed, but on market-ready products, patents, and job creation in core technology sectors. India’s innovation ecosystem has already shown its potential. In emerging areas like quantum technology, over 40 start-ups have emerged in recent years. However, when the National Quantum Mission was launched, the start-up ecosystem lacked sufficient readiness to absorb and scale the funding. This underscores the importance of ecosystem readiness over capital availability. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), a key player in the RDI strategy, must focus on long-term ecosystem building rather than simply replicating schemes already run by agencies like the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), or MeitY. Overlapping grants and fragmented structures could dilute outcomes and confuse stakeholders.
What will set ANRF apart is its ability to unify and strengthen India’s R&D efforts by aligning national priorities, avoiding redundancies, and nurturing foundational infrastructure. Too often, even well-funded projects stall at the prototype stage due to a lack of manufacturing pathways and industrial partnerships. India must resist the temptation to chase low-hanging fruit or merely count start-ups.
The goal should be to create pipelines for certification, productisation, and adoption. Only then can deep-tech research escape academic silos and deliver value to industry and the nation. The RDI Fund represents a critical opportunity. But to truly reshape the innovation landscape, it must go beyond capital allocation and become a catalyst for creating a resilient, self-reliant, and globally competitive innovation ecosystem.
(The writer is an Assistant Professor, IIIT-Sonepat. Views are personal)