New Delhi, February 12 Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal emphasized the need to capture a larger share of the data processing and cloud market while employing more talent locally.
Launching a report by the Niti Aayog on India's Technology Services, the minister said he would prefer to attract more investments into India, rather than deploying talent overseas. These individuals should be employed locally so that they can live with their families.
"We should be focusing on quickly attracting investments. Capturing the international cloud market or data processing market," the minister said.
He said that Indians are good at AI, especially applied AI.
The Commerce and Industry Minister mentioned the current practice of sending Indians to foreign lands, paying them dollar or euro salaries, which are five times what the companies would pay them locally.
"I would rather...we do that in India. Bring investments to India, create jobs here... and they live with their families...living a happier life, I believe," Goyal said.
The minister said that India is going to double its clean energy availability to 500 gigawatts by 2030, which will support the growth of data centers.
"We should be hosting the maximum data center capacity in the world in India, and I am saying this very logically," Goyal said.
He said that the data center capacity projection by 2030 is very small, and after the announcement of the tax holiday until 2047, the entire landscape around the segment will change significantly.
The Niti Aayog report has recommended that the industry must lead the shift into the AI era by reimagining its delivery model, deepening innovation, and investing in the next wave of growth.
It has suggested that firms need to pivot from cost-based services to outcome-driven, AI-enabled solutions.
It has also called for strategic investment in R&D and IP creation, particularly in fast-growing areas, such as healthcare, semiconductors, and cybersecurity, which can unlock new value pools.
Electronics and IT Secretary S Krishnan mentioned a study conducted by ICRIER on the size of the digital economy in India.
"It (the study) said about 10 years ago, we were at about a little less, around 6 to 7 per cent of the economy. Today, we are about 12.5 to 13 per cent, and by 2030, we should be about 20 per cent of India's economy. It's growing at twice the rate of the rest of the economy," he said.
He said that the Budget 2026-27, in some ways, was a technology budget in support of the technology sector to a considerable extent.
"Now, it's, I think, time for industry to repay that debt and make sure that we actually accelerate on this path to becoming a decent product," Krishnan said.
