Govt To Raise Telecom Tech R&D Spend. But It's Still Paltry

Public R&D spending is about to go up to Rs 1,000 crore every year to boost innovation in 5G/6G, quantum communications, blockchain, and satellite tech, according to ministry officials.

The Finance Minister, in this year’s Budget, announced that 50,000 “Atal Tinkering Labs” will be set up. School children will experiment with robotics, 3D printing and other advanced technologies in these labs, which will be created under “Atal Innovation Mission”. The Budget has allocated Rs 400 crore in 2025-26 for this purpose.

Telecom technology is a part of this overall R&D effort. But the amount allocated to the sector under the scheme is not clear yet. Moreover, it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, as innovation by school children will be a small part of the overall innovation picture.

Manoj Gairola, a veteran telecom industry expert, said, “Central government’s R&D on IT and telecom technology is mainly undertaken in the C-DOT (Centre for Development of Telematics), which usually has a budget in the range of Rs 350-400 crore.”

Going from this small R&D amount to an annual allocation of Rs 1,000 crore is, of course, a substantial jump. But the question that needs to be asked is: Is this enough to drive innovation?

The Secretariat dives deep to find possible answers.

India’s Overall R&D Expenditure Inadequate

India’s overall R&D spending languishes at around 0.7 per cent of its GDP, much below the global average of 2.7 per cent. Just to provide some context, South Korea spends 5.2 per cent of its GDP on R&D, the USA 3.6 per cent, Japan 3.4 per cent, Germany 3.1 per cent of its GDP, and China spends 2.6 per cent of its GDP on R&D.

A small country that is a tech powerhouse, Israel, spends 6.0 per cent of its GDP on research and development. The two biggest economies of the world, the USA and China, regularly channelise 2-3 per cent of their GDP yearly in tech research. China, in recent times, has earmarked a whopping US$ 1.55 trillion for telecom R&D.

“Huawei of China spent US$ 23 billion in 2022 to develop state-of-the-art telecom tech, including 5G/6G, chips, and AI. That is roughly 100 times more than India’s entire telecom R&D budget. India needs to spend way more than Rs 1,000 crore annually,” said Gairola.

Ideal Policy Roadmap

So, what would India need to do to match its ambition of getting a 10 per cent share of global 6G patents, and thereby a seat at the high table of telecom innovation?

Needless to say, there is an urgent need for a drastic increase in R&D funding. An added headache — the private sector in India also does not spend on R&D adequately. The major players complain about a lack of incentives.

Gairola feels that only increasing government R&D expenditure will not do. The amount needs to be spent effectively to support private sector research and development. Spending money conventionally on institutions like C-DOT may not help in the long run.

"Today’s telecom tech is almost 80-90 per cent software-based. The government should spend on building up the ecosystem for the big private players, so that they can innovate. R&D is a public-private combined effort,” he said.

The all-pervasive factor in today's time, artificial intelligence (AI), needs to be used as much as possible in telecom tech development. A deeper industry-academia partnership is the right way to go.

The focus has to be on high-impact but deep-tech projects, and the funding has to be patient and sustained.