From Make in India to Invented in India: How 12 Years of Make in India Can Spark India’s Next Innovation Revolution 

The journey of Make in India over the past 12 years has provided a solid foundation for this transformation. Initiated on September 25th, 2014, to transform India into a global hub for manufacturing, designing, and innovating, the idea has expanded to cover 27 sectors (15 in manufacturing and 12 in services) and has progressively moved towards developing self-reliant capabilities in components, equipment, and advanced technologies. Evidence of progress can be seen in numbers. Manufacturing GDP grew at a compound annual growth rate of 10.88% from 2022-23 to 2025-26, while the manufacturing component of the Industrial Production Index increased by 7% year on year from April to July of 2026. However, the more significant point is not the quantity India produces but the quality of what it can create on its own. The future of India’s economic transformation lies in its ability to change from being a mass-producing country to an innovative nation.  

The development of electronics can be viewed as a significant example of this transition. There has been nearly a 7-fold growth in electronics production, from about ₹1.9 lakh crore in 2014–15 to ₹13.11 lakh crore in 2025–26, and mobile-phone production has increased nearly 32-fold, from ₹18,900 crore to around ₹6.3 lakh crore. India has emerged as the second-largest producer of mobile phones, with 99.2% of mobile phones used in the country are Made in India, and electronics manufacturing has reached ₹13.11 lakh crore and created over 2.5 million jobs. Smartphones emerged as India’s largest exported product category in 2025, overtaking traditional export leaders such as diesel fuel and cut diamonds.  But the real potential of the innovation economy lies beyond production; the aim is to move towards design, chips, components, and intellectual property.  

Similar trends can be seen in the space-tech sector, where innovation from India is proving more technologically advanced. The country is not just putting satellites into orbit; it is also developing technology for other complex space needs, such as the VIKRAM3201 microprocessor, the first entirely indigenous microprocessor designed for the harsh conditions of launch vehicles. Similarly, KALPANA3201 has been created using open-source software tools and will be tested with flight software. These innovations are significant because they show that India moved from dependence on imported technologies to developing its own capabilities in this area. It can be concluded that the Indian economy of innovation needs to create organisations such as ISRO and scientific institutions, innovative companies, and industries to develop technologies that can later be applied across various industry sectors. 

Defence technology is yet another instance of the positive impact innovation can have on economic and strategic capabilities. From ₹46,429 crore in 2014-15, indigenous defence production is projected to cross ₹1.78 lakh crore by 2025-26, an increase of almost 283%, thereby making it less than four times more than what was produced in 2014-15. It is worth noting that defence innovation has spillover effects into areas such as electronics, aerospace, materials, semiconductors, communications, and advanced manufacturing. The development of advanced defence systems is essentially equivalent to strengthening the whole technological ecosystem. 

The pharmaceutical and medical-device industries in India signify an additional aspect of the innovation potential. In terms of volume, the pharmaceutical industry is the third largest in the world and the 11th-largest by value, with an annual turnover of ₹5,08,630 crore in 2025–26 and pharmaceutical exports valued at ₹2,62,697 crore. More importantly, India has begun producing advanced pharmaceutical products and complex medicines, including the first-ever biosimilar antibody-drug conjugate for breast cancer, a combined monoclonal antibody for rabies, a new macrolide antibiotic, and the first chemical compound used to treat anaemia in patients with kidney issues. Local production of medical equipment has grown by almost 48.2%, from ₹28,000 crore in 2019–20 to ₹41,500 crore in 2024–25. 

The next big opportunity in technology is green technology. The story of India’s solar manufacturing showcases how policies, manufacturing capacity, and technological advancements intersect to drive growth. The manufacturing capacity for solar modules rose from 2.3 GW in 2014 to 192 GW in June 2026, while the production capacity for solar cells increased from approximately 1.2 GW to 30 GW. In the EVs, an indigenously developed drive system with a 30-kW capacity, combining a motor and an inverter, was successfully tested and is now ready for commercial use. In addition, India has begun building a pilot plant to manufacture Nd-Fe-B (Neodymium-Iron-Boron) rare earth permanent magnets, which are crucial for electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, electronics, and modern manufacturing. Such cases illustrate why it is important for India to focus not only on the end products but also on their constituent materials, supply components, and technologies underneath them. 

Just as it is in the case of industrial machinery, transformation is essential in this case as well, the so-called backbone of technological independence. The growth of various capital goods sectors from ₹2.87 lakh crore in 2019–20 to ₹5.70 lakh crore in 2024–25 almost doubled, while in producing earthmoving machinery and mining equipment it grew by 160.3%, printing equipment –134.4%, metal-cutting machines – 132.2%, heavy electrical equipment – 103.5%, food-processing machines – 102.1%. This issue should be noted, since an economy cannot be technologically independent if it produces advanced final goods and continues to import the machinery to produce them. Thus, building a domestic base in machine tools, industrial equipment, and production systems enables innovation. 

But technology does not become an economy until it reaches the market. This is where startups become critical. Startup India was launched in 2016 to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, and by September 2026, it had recognised around 2.54 lakh startups. With approximately 50% of their workforce from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, startups have created more than 25 lakh jobs. The geographical spread of startups is especially important. If the innovation is still concentrated in a few metropolitan cities, it won’t be able to serve as an engine of economic growth. Expanding startups beyond the biggest cities makes it possible to create a much wider innovation ecosystem in which talent, entrepreneurial spirit, and technology are distributed across India. Startups’ survival is critical not only for India’s growth but also for employing millions and contributing to the nation’s innovation ecosystem.  

The PLI system is one component of the strategy to enhance innovative manufacturing, as it can generate the necessary scale. Its programs cover 14 industries, including electronics, pharmaceuticals, automobile manufacturing, solar PV modules, speciality steel and textiles. As of June 2026, PLI has garnered investment worth ₹2.6 lakh crore, generated ₹23.8 lakh crore in production and sales, facilitated exports worth more than ₹15.5 lakh crore, and created 14.6 lakh new jobs. The next step is to achieve a more efficient conversion of this scale into domestic value addition, indigenous technologies, and intellectual property. 

India’s innovation ambitions are also increasingly evident in semiconductors and deep tech. Semicon 2.0 was approved in July 2026, with an allocation of ₹1,27,500 crore to cover semiconductor design, manufacturing, advanced packaging, materials, equipment, research and talent development. In addition, an independent scheme for producing sintered rare-earth permanent magnets has been initiated with an allocation of ₹7,280 crore to establish a capacity of 6,000 MTPA. The initiatives fly in the face of a harsh realisation regarding the new global economy – the future leaders of the new technological era will not be simply manufacturing smartphones and batteries. They will also be in control of manufacturing the chips, raw materials, machines, software, designs and ideas behind these products. 

The measure of innovation in India should not be limited to manufacturing and production, but it should also include ideas that translate into intellectual property rights. The number of patents filed in 2025-26 exceeded 1.40 lakh, a record for the last two decades. However, patent filings alone do not indicate the emergence of an innovation economy. A more meaningful measure lies in the extent to which these ideas are successfully translated into commercially viable products and scalable technologies, and into the creation of competitive firms. India cannot turn ideas into scalable products; this is where the country needs to establish incubation centres in both the private and public sectors, in addition to academic institutions. Ultimately, the impact of innovation depends not merely on the generation of ideas but on the capacity to transform those ideas into economic value. 

India’s investor-friendly policy permits 100% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) through the automatic route in most sectors. India received cumulative FDI inflows of US$843 billion between 2014–15 and 2025–26, marking a 169 per cent increase compared with the preceding 12-year period. The National Single Window System (NSWS) provides access to over 327 central approvals and 3,452 state approvals, and India’s Industrial Land Bank has recorded 4,220 industrial parks across around 6.98 lakh hectares. PM GatiShakti is facilitating integrated planning using geographical information, satellite imagery and APIs. The Indian government invested ₹43 lakh crore in infrastructure projects and approved 20 smart industrial cities. Such infrastructure is critical, as innovation can only move smoothly when it is equipped with world-class laboratories, AI-driven factories, logistics, digital networks, industrial clusters (such as Suzhou Industrial Park, Changzhou EV Cluster, and Hefei Advanced Memory Cluster in China), a well-trained, skilled workforce, and access to markets. 

India’s main challenge no longer seems to be whether it can produce goods. The evidence suggests that the country can produce many goods in abundance. The more pressing question, however, is whether India can grab a larger share of the profit pie. It would be useful to consider India’s forward march from assembling mobile phones to manufacturing chips, from drugs to sophisticated drugs, from procuring defence materials to producing indigenous ones, from solar appreciating to making solar cells, from startup companies to deep tech ventures, to understand where India should be heading. The goal is to establish an ecosystem in which manufacturers build infrastructure, research generates technology, startups generate profits, and knowledge creates value. 

The development of the required infrastructure is already underway. As part of the Bharat Audyogik Vikas Yojana (BHAVYA) program, the government has set aside ₹33,660 crore to construct 100 industrial parks that will be fully equipped to attract investment. The plan also envisages creating high-quality industrial ecosystems, thereby attracting investment to India, accelerating growth in the manufacturing sector, and creating job opportunities. 

Thus, the twelve-year Make in India initiative has established a vital framework for the next phase of economic progress. The advancement of Make in India must not be quantified solely by the number of factories built and products produced. Still, it should instead be assessed by factors such as the extent of design, patenting, invention, commercialisation, and exports undertaken by India. The country seems to have already started creating the fundamental components of the ecosystem, which consist of ₹13.11 lakh crore worth of electronics manufacturing,  ₹1.78 lakh crore of defence manufacturing. 

Ambition for the next decade must therefore exceed “Make in India”. India’s economy must transition from the existing “Make in India” initiative to “Invent, Design and Scale in India.” There are significant challenges in turning abilities into large-scale innovations. Although India possesses the necessary skills, market, and entrepreneurship, India’s spending on R&D remains at only 0.83% of GDP. far below the OECD average (2.7%), China (2.6%), and the US (3.5%), 

There is a lack of collaboration between universities and industry, deep tech has a shortage of patient capital, and many innovations cannot break through the “valley of death” between laboratory breakthroughs and market entry. Indian innovation is also facing problems such as a lack of intellectual property creation and commercialisation, inadequate research, uncompetitive research institutions, and a shortage of engineers skilled in the latest technologies. India has the potential: it ranks 38th in the Global Innovation Index of 2025, has launched the research, development, and innovation (RDI) fund worth 1 lakh crore rupees, and already has 68000+ students trained under the Chips to Start-up (C2S) program. Therefore, it is crucial to connect IITs with industry, R&D with patient capital, prototypes and production stations, and national innovations with the market. If India can close these gaps, make in India can evolve into Invented in India—creating globally valuable IP, deep-tech companies, high-value jobs, and technologies that India not only manufactures but also owns and exports to the world.