New Delhi [India], 29 July (ANI): India's next phase of economic growth will be driven by technology, research and development, entrepreneurship and globally competitive manufacturing, with the country needing to focus on emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing, biotechnology, robotics and advanced materials, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said.

Addressing an industry gathering, Goyal said India must move beyond simply increasing production and focus on developing smarter, higher-quality and globally competitive products. He urged businesses to leverage India's large domestic market while expanding into global markets to achieve greater scale and create more employment opportunities.

'The future of manufacturing cannot just be left to producing more. It'll have to be producing smart,' Goyal said, adding that India would need better technology, automation, design, packaging and branding to compete globally.

Goyal said the government has launched a Rs 1 lakh crore research and development innovation fund that will provide long-tenure, low-cost risk capital for new technologies and innovation. He also said the India AI Mission has already onboarded 38,000 GPUs for startups and researchers at affordable rates, with plans to expand the capacity.

On semiconductors, Goyal said the first Semicon programme had been a 'huge success' and the government has now come up with Semicon 2, with a fund of around $12-13 billion, creating opportunities for new investments and ideas.

Highlighting India's startup ecosystem, Goyal said it has evolved towards a deeper focus on technology and urged Indian investors to provide capital to promising domestic startups rather than allowing successful technologies and innovations to be acquired by foreign investors.

'We need Indian pools of capital. We need Indian investors to pick up our startup ecosystem, to adopt it,' he said.

Goyal also called on industry to strengthen the MSME sector through technology adoption and improvements in productivity and quality. He made four requests to industry: do not compromise on quality, reinvest earnings in R&D and people, leverage India's free trade agreements to convert market opportunities into market share, and take greater risks in emerging technologies.

'Put money into deep tech. Put money into new age technologies, whether it's artificial intelligence, whether it's quantum computing. Put money into space. Put money into biotech,' Goyal said.

He said India's future is bright and the country is well positioned to pursue its long-term growth ambitions, with innovation and technology forming the foundation of the next phase of the India growth story. (ANI)