Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman, Bharti Enterprises
A bold Budget that combines growth with inclusion. The strong emphasis on skilling, alongside sustained investments in science, innovation and research are timely, and will strengthen domestic capabilities, advancing import substitution in critical sectors.
Bolstering infrastructure and logistics, with a focus on energy efficiency and impetus for the data center ecosystem, will further reinforce confidence in our burgeoning digital economy.
Bharti remains highly committed to play its part in enabling technology-led growth, expanding financial inclusion and accelerating future-ready education through Bharti Airtel Foundation to secure India's talent dividend.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, President and CEO, Salesforce South Asia
Budget 2026 represents India's transformation from technology consumption to AI-powered innovation - a blueprint for a $7 trillion economy built on intelligence, not just scale.
The strategic architecture is balanced and long-term. The tax holiday until 2047 for cloud services is a masterstroke in data sovereignty, attracting an estimated $50 billion in data center investments by 2030, while positioning India as the cloud hub for emerging markets.
MSME reforms demonstrate sophisticated thinking. The Rs. 10,000 crore SME Growth Fund, combined with the TReDs platform mandate and expanded safe harbor thresholds, creates force multipliers enabling India's 63 million MSMEs to scale from survivors to global champions.
The High-Powered Committee on Education to Employment targets capturing 10 percent of global services trade by 2047 - ambitious but achievable given our demographic advantage: 65 percent under 35, digital infrastructure like UPI and Aadhaar.
AI integration is refreshingly pragmatic. Bharat-VISTAAR's multilingual agricultural platform and AI in school curricula show generational thinking, ensuring our demographic dividend becomes an intelligent dividend.
We see the Budget as a structural roadmap that creates an environment where technology, enterprises and individuals can unite to collectively propel India's future advancement. However, the critical gap remains R&D investment; we risk becoming sophisticated consumers of AI rather than creators.
The Union Budget's design powers national growth, driven by AI, cloud sovereignty and innovative digital platforms. This technological foundation is key to defining the future of growth, and Salesforce fully embraces this opportunity.
Gokul NA, Founder, CynLr
The launch of ISM 2.0 marks an important shift in India's semiconductor journey - from a narrow focus on fabrication to building capabilities across equipment, materials, design and full-stack Indian IP. Alongside the expanded Rs. 40,000 crore Electronics Components Manufacturing Scheme, this Budget strengthens the domestic electronics and semiconductor supply chain in a meaningful way. For hardware and deep-engineering startups, this creates the foundation to design and build globally competitive technology in India, with greater control over critical components rather than relying entirely on imported ecosystems.
Rajendra Kumar Shreemal, CFO, Quest Global
Quest Global welcomes the Union Budget's decision of unified 'Information Technology Services' category, which will remove many TP related litigation.
The above change, coupled with introduction of a common Safe Harbor margin of 15.5 percent and the substantial enhancement on the eligibility threshold from Rs, 300 crores to Rs. 2,000 crores is a positive move for the sector and meaningfully improves ease of doing business whether it is for foreign MNCs or of Indian MNCs. This rationalization provides greater tax certainty, reduces compliance complexity and supports scale-driven growth for engineering R&D service providers operating global and related-party delivery models. It will strengthen India's attractiveness for higher-value captive engineering work, reinforcing investor confidence and global enterprises evaluating India as a hub for advanced engineering, product development and R&D-led innovation.
Amit Rana, Partner, PwC India
Union Budget 2026-27 offers positive proposals for promoting investment in data centers in India. Under the proposals, income of overseas entities from the provision of cloud services using specified Indian data centers will be exempt from Indian income tax until 2047. Indian data centers will also be eligible for a safe harbor of cost, plus 15 percent. These amendments with more than 20-year validity will provide significant certainty to cloud service providers and allow them to plan large capex in India which could be beneficial for India to become a global data hub.
Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI)
The Budget's recognition of AI as a strategic enabler across sectors is a positive signal for India's innovation ecosystem. As AI adoption accelerates across healthcare, finance, education and public services, the next phase must focus on access to compute infrastructure and targeted support for applied AI research and deployment. Multi-stakeholder collaboration will be critical to ensure India builds globally competitive, responsible and inclusive AI solutions.
Sanjeev Kumar Gupta, CEO, Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM)
The announcement of ISM 2.0 and the expanded ECMS framework can embrace the entire semiconductor value chain. The combination of national capital support and state-level cluster initiatives creates a unique opportunity to build not just fabs, but an integrated ecosystem of IP creation, supply chain resilience and regional high-skill employment. The Karnataka state's commitment - further reaffirmed by the proposed tax holiday until 2047 for Foreign cloud firms using Indian data centers, domestic reseller mandates and regulatory clarity for cloud infrastructure -creates the long-term certainty of capital-intensive, IP-driven investments demand. Since FY21, these emerging clusters have already generated 138 companies and over 9,000 high-skill jobs in AI, SaaS, cybersecurity and platform engineering.
The convergence of national measures—the Rs. 10,000 crore SME Growth Fund; MSME credit architecture reforms; TReDS enhancements—with Karnataka's Rs. 75 crore Cluster Seed Fund and women-focused entrepreneurship initiatives creates a powerful multiplier effect. MSMEs can now expand beyond traditional metros; strengthen backward integration in electronics supply chains; generate indigenous IP; attract global design partnerships. We're building the scaffolding for lakhs of high-value jobs across tier-2 and tier-3 cities.
However, opportunity and execution remain distinct. India still lacks dedicated R&D tax incentives comparable to global competitors; the concept of Digital Economy Zones—purpose-built ecosystems for deep-tech and electronics innovation—remains under-explored. The next decade will define whether we capture value or remain assemblers. Karnataka's blueprint—leveraging design talent; regulatory clarity; proven cluster performance—offers a compelling model for India's digital and electronics leadership.
Manoj Nair, Head of Applications, Fujitsu
The Hon'ble Finance Minister has presented a forward-looking Union Budget that strongly reinforces India's Viksit Bharat ambition and conducive policies to make India a global technology hub. There is a huge focus on AI by positioning it as a force multiplier combined with robust policies to support the growth of data centers. The launch of the India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 will accelerate the development of a resilient semiconductor ecosystem spanning materials, equipment, full-stack IP design and enhancing supply chains.
The move to approve Safe Harbor for IT services through an automated, rule-based mechanism is a significant reform that enhances ease of doing business and provides certainty in taxation for the industry. Equally encouraging is the focus on positioning data centers as critical infrastructure along with the proposal to extend tax holidays till 2047 for global cloud service providers operating from India.
Together, these measures will help in boosting investor confidence enhance innovation create long-term growth opportunities for semiconductor and IT services companies including data center players while further strengthening India's role in the global technology value chain.
Bimal Khandelwal, CEO, STT GDC India
The Union Budget 2026 marks a decisive policy intervention that holistically addresses capital formation, demand creation and long-term sustainability for India's data center sector. The proposed tax holiday till 2047 for foreign cloud providers using Indian data centers is expected to unlock increased foreign direct investment, position India as a preferred global digital infrastructure destination, and materially enhance its competitiveness in attracting hyperscale and AI-led workloads. This, in turn, will drive sustained demand for low latency, resilient digital infrastructure critical to enabling India's Viksit Bharat 2047 digital economy agenda. We welcome the Government's integrated approach, which aligns fiscal incentives with infrastructure readiness and sustainability priorities. At STT GDC India, we are well positioned to support this next phase of growth through scalable, AI-ready and sustainable data center infrastructure that underpins India's digital future.
Ravi Kunwar, VP and CEO, HMD India and APAC
The Hon'ble Finance Minister must be lauded for her broad vision in covering several key sectors in the Budget. The hiked allocation of Rs. 40,000 crores for the Electronic Components Manufacturing Scheme will give a fillip to varied verticals, including the telecom industry. Similarly, the proposed launch of the India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, focused on industry-led R&D and training centers for chips, is another welcome announcement.
The move to transform the Customs warehousing framework into a warehouse operator-centric system via self-declarations, risk-based audit and electronic tracking will eliminate the problems of officer-linked approvals. This will reduce transaction delays and lower compliance costs.
The decision to create a High-Powered 'Education to Employment and Enterprise' Standing Committee to help in assessing the impact of emerging technologies, such as AI, on jobs and skill requirements will be useful in introducing suitable measures to mitigate the downside. The promotion of environmentally sustainable cargo movement through the proposed East to West corridor is also good news. Likewise, the decision to build seven high-speed rail corridors between cities as growth connectors will give a huge boost to industrial activities across India.