Beyond quantum talent

That gap is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. As governments pour billions into what could become one of this century’s defining technologies, India risks replaying a familiar script – supplying world-class talent while the intellectual property, products and commercial value are created elsewhere.

“We still think like a services nation, not a product nation,” says Ajai Chowdhry, chairman of the Mission Governing Board under the National Quantum Mission (NQM). India’s IT services success created exceptional engineering capability, he says, but also encouraged a culture of building for someone else’s intellectual property rather than creating and owning it.

Quantum offers India an opportunity it did not have in semiconductors. While India produced world-class semiconductor talent, much of the industry’s value creation happened elsewhere. In quantum, however, the race is still wide open. Commercial applications are only beginning to emerge and no country has established overwhelming dominance, giving India a rare opportunity to build alongside the world’s leaders rather than spend years catching up.

The scientific capability is already in place. Research in quantum computing, communication, sensing and materials has expanded across institutions such as IISc and the IITs, while Indian-origin scientists occupy leading positions in universities and companies worldwide. The challenge is turning that scientific leadership into globally competitive businesses.

“In the US, most successful deeptech startups grew through the DARPA model,” says Chowdhry. Government agencies identified strategic problems, funded multiple startups and often became their first customers, sharply reducing commercial risk. India is only now beginning to build similar mechanisms.

The National Quantum Mission is beginning to address that gap. It has backed nearly 20 startups, established four thematic hubs at IISc, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras and IIT Delhi, and accelerated indigenous hardware development. India has progressed from an indigenous seven-qubit machine to a 25-qubit system and expects a 64-qubit machine later this year. The objective is not simply to produce more research, but to create companies capable of commercialising quantum technologies.

However, commercialisation remains India’s weakest link. Promising technologies often stay inside laboratories because technology transfer is slow, university spin-offs are limited and researchers receive little support to become entrepreneurs.

“India performs fantastically well in the quantum field, but we are still developing the layer between scientific achievement and economic achievement,” says Omprakash Subbarao, CEO of the Foundation for Science Innovation and Development (FSID) at IISc. Researchers need stronger industry networks, easier technology transfer and more opportunities to validate ideas against real industrial problems, he says.

The economics of deep technology make the challenge even harder. Unlike software startups, quantum companies require years of research before generating commercial returns. Building hardware, algorithms and applications simultaneously demands sophisticated infrastructure and patient capital.

“Patient capital is needed to build deep technology,” says Anil Prabhakar, principal investigator at IIT Madras’ Centre for Quantum Information, Communication and Computing. Government procurement, he adds, can also play an important role by becoming an early customer for indigenous technologies.

But funding alone will not build a quantum industry. Researchers, engineers, manufacturers, product developers and customers need to work together from the outset. That collaboration has remained inconsistent in India. According to Indrakshi Raychowdhury, associate professor in the department of physics at BITS Pilani, India has produced excellent quantum researchers but has not consistently connected them with hardware platforms, engineering teams and industrial R&D. Young scientists returning from leading global laboratories often struggle to secure timely support, while industry participation frequently comes too late in the innovation cycle.

The urgency is also increasing. With export controls tightening around advanced technologies, countries can no longer assume unrestricted access to critical hardware or cybersecurity infrastructure. “Our goal should be sovereignty, not parity,” says Chowdhry. That has pushed the National Quantum Mission towards indigenous development of quantum hardware, subsystems and control electronics, alongside preparations for post-quantum cryptography.

Breaking that pattern will require far more than scientific excellence. “Scientific excellence alone does not create globally competitive companies,” says Ashok Chandak, president of SEMI India. Commercial success, he argues, depends on long-term research funding, patient capital, faster technology transfer and stronger industry-academia collaboration. Quantum also extends well beyond processors. Advances in semiconductors, photonics, advanced packaging, cryogenic electronics and precision manufacturing can help India’s broader technology ecosystem become part of the global quantum value chain.

The pieces are beginning to come together. The National Quantum Mission is backing startups, strengthening translational research and expanding quantum education, while industry interest continues to grow. For perhaps the first time in a frontier technology, India is entering the race early rather than trying to catch up. Whether it can build a globally competitive quantum industry will depend not on the quality of its scientists – which is already proven – but on its ability to translate research into products, companies and commercial success. If it succeeds, quantum could become one of the first industries where India exports not just talent, but innovation itself.