If innovation transforming a country were a technology, it would look like India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the instant payment system developed in India and now being exported globally. India does more digital transactions today than that of the US, China, and Europe put together. However, India's success in digital transactions can be traced back to the launch of Digital India in 2015. Recently, Minister of State for Information and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, “In 2015, through the launch of Digital India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi set unconventional expectations through three broad goals—technology should improve the lives of citizens, impact governance and democracy and further expand and create an architecture for an innovative economy. Over the past nine years, India has taken the lead in creating technologies instead of being a mute spectator and consumer of technology.”

Cloud Computing
Additionally, the pandemic became a tailwind to cloud adoption in the country. Most businesses migrated to the cloud to ensure the delivery is resilient and consistent and the deliverables maintain high quality. According to marketsandmarkets.com, the global cloud computing market size is expected to grow from $445.3 billion in 2021 to $947.3 billion by 2026 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16.3 percent during the forecast period. Asia's software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry has made the most of this favorable ecosystem.

The recent Gartner forecast also sheds light on how the exponentially growing cloud services market adds fuel to the global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 75 percent of organizations will adopt a digital transformation model predicated on the cloud as the fundamental underlying platform. While cloud infrastructure and platform services drive the highest spending growth, SaaS remains the largest segment of the cloud market by end-user spending. SaaS spending is projected to grow 17.9 percent to $197 billion in 2023. According to Statista, the revenue is expected to show a CAGR of 14.48 percent, resulting in a market volume of $58.40 billion by 2027. India minted 21 unicorns last year, and the major wedge of them are SaaS startups.

Robotic Process Automation
On the other hand, the global RPA market size is expected to grow by $16,628.29 millionM during 2022-2027, progressing at a CAGR of 35.83 percent. In fact, contrary to the thought that RPA will take away jobs, it can aid labor augmentation, complementing the human workforce and helping to boost productivity and efficiency.

Adjacently, the Artificial Intelligence Market is set to be worth $407.0 Billion by 2027, Growing at a CAGR of 36.2 percent. The wind looks ideal for technology startups to cruise. India recently installed the AI Supercomputer ‘AIRAWAT’ at C-DAC, Pune, which is ranked 75th in the world. This puts India on top of AI Supercomputing nations worldwide. The system is installed under the National Program on AI by the Government of India. Commenting on the occasion, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi reiterated his vision: “We need to make Artificial Intelligence in India and Artificial Intelligence work for India.” It presents enormous opportunities for technopreneurs to thrive.

Telecom Boom
The boost in this technology ecosystem can be traced back to the boom of the Telecom industry. The recent amendments made in the Right of Way (RoW) rules for telecom infrastructure are set to expedite the 5G rollout in the country. The latest amendments offer a single application for multiple small cell sites and allow telecoms to set up temporary over-ground telegraph infrastructure when their existing underground infrastructure is damaged. The amendments also offer other relaxations. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), whose members include Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone Idea, etc., commented on the amendments, mentioning that the new provisions would aid in restoring telegraph services on priority, thus preventing major disruptions in services to the users.

According to a report by insights and consulting company Kantar, India will have over 900 million internet users by 2025, driving more than 500 million digital transactions. The report also predicts that more than 87 percent of Indian households will have at least one internet user by 2025.

Moving Ahead with Care
This rapidly growing technology ecosystem has a drastic downside in the form of cyber threats. According to a report by cybersecurity firm CloudSek, India, the US, Indonesia, and China accounted for 45 percent of total cyberattacks on government agencies worldwide in the second half of 2022, to say nothing of the attacks in the corporate realm. The increasing cyber threat landscape takes it a bit far, making it almost inevitable to amass all the help you can get. This challenging scenario often calls for help from third-party technology experts with advanced threat intelligence and automated response tools at their disposal. According to a new report by marketsandmarkets.com, the global Cyber Security Market size is expected to grow from $173.5 billion in 2022 to $266.2 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 8.9 percent. It is quite clear that the country needs a technology push with an intact cyber security vision and approach.