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The Ministry of Science and Technology tabled the outlays of India's six major emerging-technology missions in the Lok Sabha, led by the Rs 1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation Fund.
The National Quantum Mission has four Thematic Hubs operational with 14 Technical Groups, 17 Project Teams and support to 17 quantum startups.
NM-ICPS has established 25 Technology Innovation Hubs, four of which were upgraded to Technology Translation Research Parks in 2025-26.
TIHs have produced more than 1,100 technologies and 1,300 technology products and incubated over 1,130 startups.
India's Gross Expenditure on R&D rose from 0.64% of GDP in 2020-21 to 0.84% in 2023-24, reaching Rs 2,44,767.81 crore.
Crowd in private investment for high-risk, high-impact research in deep technologies
Key: Rs 1 lakh crore corpus over six years; the Scheme was approved by the Union Cabinet on 1 July 2025 and the Fund was launched on 3 November 2025. It covers quantum computing, robotics, space, AI, biotechnology, the digital economy and energy security and transition
Build indigenous capability across quantum computing, communication, sensing and metrology, and materials and devices
Key: Approved by the Union Cabinet on 19 April 2023 with an outlay of Rs 6,003.65 crore for eight years, running to 2030-31; one Mission objective is intermediate-scale quantum computers with 50-1,000 physical qubits across platforms including superconducting and photonic. Governance runs through a Mission Governing Board and a Mission Technology Research Council, with an Annual Quantum Conclave held on 10-11 April 2026
Build capability in cyber-physical technologies and translate research into products and companies
Key: Launched in 2018 by DST with Rs 3,660 crore over nine years; 25 Technology Innovation Hubs work on technology development, human resource and skill development, entrepreneurship and international collaboration. Activities are now organised around five priority verticals — healthcare (IIT Indore), agriculture and water (IIT Bombay), mining (IIT ISM Dhanbad), cybersecurity (IIT Kanpur) and mobility and autonomous systems (IISc Bengaluru)
Build compute capacity, datasets, indigenous AI models, talent and startup risk capital
Key: Approved by the Union Cabinet on 7 March 2024 with an outlay of Rs 10,371.92 crore
Establish domestic semiconductor fabrication, packaging and design capability
Key: Rs 76,000 crore — the largest single outlay among the missions listed
Build sovereign, India-centric generative AI foundation models
Key: Led by IIT Bombay with a consortium of academic institutions under NM-ICPS. Key models are Param-2, a 17-billion-parameter multilingual foundation model covering all 22 Scheduled Indian languages; Shrutam for speech-to-text and Sooktam for text-to-speech across 12 Indian languages; and Patram, the DocBodh framework for conversational multilingual access to complex Indian documents
Push the best-performing innovation hubs from research into commercialisation
Key: Four TIHs upgraded in 2025-26 — IIT Kanpur for cybersecurity, IISc Bengaluru for robotics and AI systems, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad for mining technologies and IIT Indore for digital healthcare; additional funding also went to TIHs at IIT Madras, IIT Hyderabad and IIT Bombay
Give students, researchers and startups access to quantum computing resources
Key: A unified quantum computing platform developed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, integrated with High Performance Computing systems, for designing, simulating and executing quantum algorithms across multiple hardware platforms
Implements NM-ICPS and the National Quantum Mission; publishes the Research and Development Statistics report from which the GERD figures come; runs FIST, PURSE, SAIF and SATHI research infrastructure schemes
Apex body for funding, coordinating and promoting research across natural sciences, engineering, and allied fields; set up to draw in private and philanthropic funding alongside public money
Governance and technical review mechanism for the National Quantum Mission, supplemented by expert committees, on-site reviews and the Annual Quantum Conclave
Has developed and transferred indigenous quantum products to industry, including Quantum Random Number Generators and an RFSoC-based Controller for Quantum Computer Processors; runs the Technology Development Fund for MSMEs and startups, DRDO Industry Academia Centres of Excellence, and the Contract for Acquisition of Research Services
Developed Qniverse, the unified quantum computing platform integrated with HPC systems
The Mission's four Thematic Hubs correspond to the four distinct things quantum mechanics can be engineered to do, and they are not interchangeable. Quantum computing exploits superposition and entanglement in qubits to run algorithms that are intractable for classical machines; the qubit platforms named in the reply include semiconducting, photonic, neutral atom, electron spin and superconducting. Quantum communication uses the fact that measuring a quantum state disturbs it, which makes eavesdropping detectable — the basis of Quantum Key Distribution, and here extended to trusted-node-free hybrid networks, quantum repeaters, satellite-based links and Post-Quantum Cryptography, which is the separate discipline of designing classical algorithms that a future quantum computer could not break. Quantum sensing and metrology exploits the extreme sensitivity of quantum states to their environment to build magnetometers, gravimeters and NV-centre sensors far more precise than classical instruments. Quantum materials and devices covers the physical substrate — quantum dots, spintronic materials and photonic devices — without which none of the other three can be built. Each hub therefore sits at a different point on the same technology stack.
Simple Analogy: Think of the four hubs as processor, network, instruments and raw materials: you cannot build the machine without all four, but they are separate industries.
| Mission | Outlay | Nodal department or ministry | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| RDI Fund | Rs 1.0 lakh crore | Coordinated with ANRF; Department of Science and Technology | Private-sector-led deep-tech research finance |
| India Semiconductor Mission | Rs 76,000 crore | Ministry of Electronics and IT | Fabrication, packaging, design, ecosystem |
| IndiaAI Mission | Rs 10,371.92 crore | Ministry of Electronics and IT | Compute, datasets, models, AI startups |
| Bio-RIDE | Rs 9,197 crore | Department of Biotechnology | Biotechnology, biomanufacturing, biofoundry |
| National Quantum Mission | Rs 6,003.65 crore | Department of Science and Technology | Computing, communication, sensing, materials |
| NM-ICPS | Rs 3,660 crore | Department of Science and Technology | AI, IoT, robotics, cybersecurity via 25 TIHs |
India's GERD at 0.84% of GDP in 2023-24 remains well below the 2%+ typical of advanced economies, which is precisely the gap the RDI Fund and ANRF are designed to close by drawing in private and philanthropic money
The quantum communication hub works on PQC alongside QKD, because a sufficiently powerful quantum computer would break today's public-key encryption — a national security question, not only a research one
BharatGen's Param-2 covering all 22 Scheduled languages is India's answer to dependence on foreign foundation models, and connects to the Eighth Schedule and language policy
DRDO's Quantum Random Number Generators and quantum processor controllers have been transferred to industry, and its Technology Development Fund and DIACoEs are the institutional route from lab to defence product
The VAIBHAV Fellowship, Ramanujan Fellowship, Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship and MK Bhan-Young Researcher Fellowship are the named instruments for attracting Indian researchers back from abroad
ANRF absorbed and replaced the Science and Engineering Research Board, a shift from project-level grant-giving to an apex funding and coordination body chaired by the Prime Minister
GS Paper 3 > Science and Technology > Developments and Applications; Indigenisation of Technology
General Awareness > Science and Technology > Government Missions
General Awareness > Government Schemes and Outlays
Which of the following statements is/are correct regarding Smart India Hackathon 2017? 1. It is a centrally sponsored scheme for developing every city of our country into Smart Cities in a decade. 2. It is an initiative to identify new digital technology innovations for solving the many problems faced by our country. 3. It is a programme aimed at making all the financial transactions in our country completely digital in a decade. Select the correct answer using the code given below:
Answer: 2 only
Atal Innovation Mission is set up under the
Answer: NITI Aayog
Government science missions and their outlays are a recurring UPSC Prelims and SSC theme, and the quantum mission has featured every year since 2023
The basic unit of quantum information, which unlike a classical bit can exist in a superposition of 0 and 1; the NQM targets intermediate-scale machines with 50-1,000 physical qubits
A method of sharing encryption keys in which any interception disturbs the quantum state and is therefore detectable; the NQM's communication hub works on fibre-based, satellite-based and trusted-node-free QKD networks
Classical cryptographic algorithms designed to resist attack by a future quantum computer — a distinct discipline from QKD, which uses quantum physics itself
A system in which computation, networking and physical processes are tightly coupled — robotics, IoT, autonomous vehicles, smart infrastructure; the subject of NM-ICPS
Gross Expenditure on Research and Development, the standard international measure of a country's total R&D spending; India's stood at 0.84% of GDP in 2023-24
An upgraded Technology Innovation Hub focused on commercialising research; four were created in 2025-26 at IIT Kanpur, IISc Bengaluru, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad and IIT Indore