India’s next competitive advantage must be built, not inherited

For a long time, India’s growth story has rested on powerful fundamentals: a large domestic market, favourable demographics, entrepreneurial energy and deep technology talent. These remain significant strengths. But the next decade will test something more demanding, whether India can convert these intrinsic advantages into deliberately built sources of global competitiveness.

For large economies, ambition alone is never enough. Long-term economic leadership is shaped by the ability to execute consistently across infrastructure, institutions, enterprise and regions. The real question for India is no longer whether it can participate in the next global growth cycle. It is whether India can help design, shape and lead it.

This requires a shift in mindset from celebrating capacity to building capability; from isolated success stories to integrated ecosystems; and from policy intent to execution at scale. India has several levers working in its favour: a maturing GCC base, world-class digital public infrastructure, a vibrant startup ecosystem and a growing manufacturing footprint. The opportunity now is to connect these levers into a more productive and globally competitive economic system.


India’s GCC story is an important marker of this transition. The country is already home to around 1,700 GCCs employing about 1.9 mn people. This base is projected to expand to nearly 2,400 GCCs and create about 2.8 million jobs by 2030, alongside one of the world’s fastest-growing data-centre markets. More importantly, over half of India’s GCCs had evolved into portfolio and transformation hubs by FY24, compared with 18% in FY13.

This is encouraging, but scale by itself is not a competitive advantage. GCCs can become far more strategic if they move deeper into innovation, product ownership, advanced analytics, enterprise transformation and global decision-making. That shift will require stronger links between talent, infrastructure, research, data, capital and enterprise leadership. India’s advantage will come not from having many capabilities, but from orchestrating them well.

The same logic applies to manufacturing. India’s ambitions in semiconductors, for instance, should not be viewed only through the lens of fabrication capacity. The larger opportunity is to become indispensable across more stages of the global value chain: design, equipment, specialty chemicals, industrial gases, advanced packaging, research and skilled manpower.

With strategic moves already underway, India is on track to join the top five global semiconductor hubs by 2030. The approval of 6 semiconductor fabrication plants with an outlay of $1.3 bn marks an important shift from policy intent to execution-led capacity building. But semiconductor resilience cannot rest on one part of the value chain alone. India has an opportunity to build a distinctive model by combining its design strength, domestic demand, engineering depth and manufacturing ecosystem.

Startups will be central to this next phase. India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem must increasingly be seen as part of the country’s strategic and industrial capability, not only as a source of consumer innovation or enterprise valuation. Stronger pathways are needed from laboratory to market and from prototype to commercial scale. This will require closer collaboration between universities, public laboratories, large enterprises and startups.

Market data indicates that venture funding improved to approximately $15 bn, from $12.5 bn in FY24.That is a positive signal, but funding alone will not create the next wave of national competitiveness. More patient capital, institutional support and market access must flow towards deep-tech ventures in areas such as advanced materials, clean energy, space, health technology, AI and defence.

Four enablers will be decisive: talent, trust, capital and policy continuity. Talent policy must move beyond numbers and focus on interdisciplinary capability i.e., people who can combine science, engineering, manufacturing, business leadership and regulatory understanding. Trust must also be treated as economic infrastructure. Strong data protection, cyber resilience, predictable regulation and credible IP frameworks can become sources of competitive advantage.

Business leaders recognise this. Research indicates that 83% of CEOs in India are optimistic about their organisations’ prospects; 65% are backing AI investment, while cybersecurity and digital-risk resilience rank as the foremost investment priority for 42%. This confidence is welcome. It now needs to be matched by responsible adoption, workforce readiness, resilient governance and execution discipline.

Digital public infrastructure has demonstrated the power of combining innovation, inclusion, and execution at scale. India has a similar opportunity to help redefine how nations grow in a more connected, intelligent, and trusted world. The coming decade could well be remembered as the moment India moved from being a participant in global transformation to becoming one of its principal architects.

If we can connect talent with technology, enterprise with policy, innovation with trust, and ambition with disciplined execution, we can help shape the rules, build the platforms, and define the ideas that power the world's next era of growth.

The writer is CEO, KPMG in India