NEW DELHI, 28th Oct: India’s scientific ambitions now come with a clear challenge: deliver measurable, scalable technological outcomes within three years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi set this direction at ESTIC 2026 in New Delhi, urging scientists, researchers and deep-tech startups to take innovation beyond laboratories and turn it into solutions that matter.

From artificial intelligence and quantum technologies to biotechnology and advanced manufacturing, the conclave put a central question on the table: how quickly can India convert scientific research into technologies that strengthen national capabilities and serve society?

ESTIC 2026: Modi Calls for Results Within Three Years

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Emerging Science, Technology and Innovation Conclave (ESTIC) 2026 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on October 27. The inaugural day brought together more than 5,000 global delegates, including scientific leaders, policymakers, researchers and deep-tech startups.

The Prime Minister called for concrete, measurable and scalable technological outcomes within a three-year operational horizon. His message focused on moving scientific breakthroughs beyond laboratory settings and applying them to real-world challenges.

The direction aligns with the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat, which places importance on developing domestic capabilities and reducing dependence on external sources for critical technologies.

Modi also reaffirmed India’s commitment to setting global benchmarks in frontier fields, including artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, advanced materials and biotechnology.

The challenge is straightforward in principle. Research must lead somewhere. Discoveries need pathways to development, testing, industrial adoption and practical use. Scientific achievement matters, but its broader impact depends on what happens after the initial breakthrough.

For India, that means building stronger connections between laboratories, universities, startups, industry and government.

India’s Startup Ecosystem Expands Beyond Major Cities

Union Minister of State for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, Jitendra Singh, described India’s changing position in the global science and technology landscape.

According to Singh, the country has moved from being primarily a consumer of technologies towards becoming a future-ready global co-creator of frontier scientific solutions.

He highlighted the expansion of India’s startup ecosystem from approximately 400 startups in 2014 to more than 2.3 lakh today.

The minister also noted that an estimated 50 to 60 per cent of these startups are based in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.

That geographical spread matters. Innovation is no longer a conversation limited to major metropolitan centres. A wider startup base creates opportunities to develop technology businesses across different regions, although access to capital, research facilities, skilled talent and commercial markets remains important for their growth.

For deep-tech ventures, the next stage involves more than producing a promising prototype. Founders must navigate technical validation, intellectual property, funding, regulatory requirements and the difficult transition to commercial deployment.

The three-year challenge discussed at ESTIC 2026 brings this transition into focus.

Biotechnology Emerges as a Strategic Priority

Singh identified India’s genetic and phenotypic diversity as an important resource for biotechnology research.

He called attention to the need for stronger domestic capabilities in gene synthesis, systems biology and nuclear medicine. He also referred to recent legislative reforms, including the SHANTI Act, in the context of accelerating work in these fields.

The underlying priority is to develop scientific capabilities within India and translate them into useful applications.

Biotechnology has potential applications across healthcare, agriculture, diagnostics and industrial production. But turning that potential into dependable solutions requires sustained research, specialised infrastructure and collaboration between scientific institutions and businesses.

The minister’s remarks placed indigenous research and application development at the centre of India’s biotechnology ambitions.

For a country working to strengthen its scientific and industrial base, the question is not simply whether new discoveries are possible. It is whether the ecosystem can develop, validate and deploy them at scale.

ESTIC 2026 Puts AI, Quantum Technology and Advanced Manufacturing in Focus

Ajay K. Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, emphasised closer alignment between basic research, industrial scale-up and regulatory policy.

He outlined ESTIC’s 12 core thematic priority domains and highlighted areas including quantum communication, generative and autonomous artificial intelligence, semiconductor fabrication, advanced manufacturing and the Deep Ocean Mission.

These fields demand different kinds of expertise, investment and infrastructure. Yet they share a common requirement: research must connect with the institutions and industrial capabilities needed to turn scientific advances into usable technologies.

Quantum communication requires specialised scientific and engineering capabilities. Semiconductor fabrication depends on complex manufacturing ecosystems. Advanced manufacturing brings together digital technologies, materials science, engineering and industrial processes.

The Deep Ocean Mission represents another area where scientific research and technological development intersect.

By bringing researchers, policymakers, industry representatives and startups into a common forum, ESTIC 2026 aims to strengthen the links between scientific discovery and national technological capability.

Nobel Laureates Bring Global Research Perspectives

The conclave’s inaugural programme included plenary talks by two Nobel Laureates, connecting fundamental scientific research with applications in healthcare, biotechnology and the life sciences.

Joachim Frank of Columbia University, who received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, delivered a presentation on cryo-electron microscopy, commonly known as Cryo-EM, and its applications in target discovery and drug design.

His talk covered computational and mathematical frameworks used in high-resolution, single-particle Cryo-EM and the three-dimensional visualisation of macromolecular complexes.

This technology allows researchers to examine biological structures in detail. Such structural information can help scientists understand biological targets and support rational drug-design workflows.

Richard J. Roberts, the 1993 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, delivered a separate plenary on split genes and frontiers in life sciences.

His presentation addressed gene splicing, microbial genomics and restriction-modification enzymes. It also considered biotechnology initiatives relevant to sustainable agriculture, public health and diagnostics.

Together, the sessions highlighted how fundamental discoveries can inform research across medicine, food systems and healthcare.

For India, strengthening the connection between advanced scientific methods and domestic research capabilities remains relevant to its broader ambitions in biotechnology and life sciences.

Advanced Manufacturing: From Digital Twins to Industrial Production

The Advanced Manufacturing session, chaired by N. Kalaiselvi, Director General of CSIR, featured a keynote address by G. Satheesh Reddy, former Chairman of the Defence Research and Development Organisation.

Other listed speakers included Rajat Verma, Chaya Nanjappa, N. C. Murmu, C. Anandharamakrishnan and Nagahanumaiah.

The session examined technologies and methods including digital twins, collaborative robots, additive manufacturing and metrology. It also focused on strengthening supply chains for micro, small and medium enterprises.

These technologies can help connect engineering research with industrial production. Digital twins, for example, provide virtual representations of physical systems, while additive manufacturing enables components to be produced through successive layers of material.

Their practical value depends on implementation, technical reliability and suitability for particular industrial applications.

Strengthening manufacturing capabilities also involves developing supply chains that can support production at scale. For MSMEs, access to relevant technologies and reliable industrial networks can be important to participation in advanced manufacturing ecosystems.

The session placed these issues within the broader effort to translate research into domestic industrial capability.

Generative and Autonomous AI Takes Centre Stage

The Generative and Autonomous AI session was chaired by Saurabh Vijay, Chief Executive Officer of IndiaAI, and featured a keynote address by Mitesh M. Khapra of IIT Madras.

Participants included Chetan Arora, Alpan Raval, Balaraman Ravindran and S. Krishnan, Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The discussion covered homegrown large language models, access to high-performance computing under IndiaAI, agentic artificial intelligence and frameworks for safe deployment.

Each area addresses a different part of the AI ecosystem.

Homegrown large language models focus on developing AI capabilities within the country. High-performance computing provides the computational resources required for demanding workloads. Agentic AI involves systems designed to undertake tasks through sequences of actions, while safe-deployment frameworks address the conditions under which these systems should be used.

India’s ambitions in artificial intelligence therefore extend beyond adopting available tools. They also involve developing technical expertise, infrastructure and systems for responsible deployment.

The challenge is to turn research and computing resources into useful applications while accounting for reliability, safety and real-world requirements.

Synthetic Biology Connects Research With Agriculture and Healthcare

The System and Synthetic Biology session explored engineered biological systems and India’s BioE3 national strategy.

A central framework was the “Understand, Design, Build, Test, Learn” cycle, which describes an iterative approach to biological design.

The session identified precision biotherapeutics, metabolic pathway design, biofortified crops and waste-to-value biomanufacturing as potential application areas.

The approach links the study of biological systems with the design and testing of engineered solutions.

Precision biotherapeutics can support targeted approaches to treatment. Biofortified crops focus on improving nutritional characteristics, while waste-to-value biomanufacturing explores ways to convert waste materials into useful products.

Metabolic pathway design involves engineering biological processes to achieve specific outcomes.

These applications illustrate why biotechnology increasingly intersects with agriculture, healthcare and manufacturing. Progress, however, depends on experimental validation, safety assessment and the ability to scale processes beyond controlled research environments.

Deep-Tech Funding and Technology Transfer Remain Critical

ESTIC 2026 also addressed the mechanisms needed to move research towards commercial applications.

The evening panel discussion, titled “Science and Disruptive Technologies for Atmanirbhar Bharat”, was chaired by Ajay K. Sood.

The listed panellists were Tessy Thomas, Gen. N. S. Raja Subramani, Bhanu P. Jena, Samir Saran and V. K. Singh.

The discussion covered defence technological sovereignty, commercialisation of intellectual property, deep-tech funding and technology transfer across sectors.

These issues are central to the journey from scientific discovery to market-ready products.

A promising research result does not automatically become a commercial technology. It may require additional engineering, testing, intellectual property protection, financing and industrial partnerships.

Technology transfer mechanisms can help research institutions and companies work together to develop practical applications. Deep-tech funding can support development through stages that demand significant investment before commercial returns become possible.

The conclave also identified the ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation Fund and mechanisms under the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, or ANRF, as avenues for advancing deep-tech development through technology-readiness stages towards commercialised products.

The effectiveness of these mechanisms will depend on how research projects access support, demonstrate progress and move towards deployment.

A Three-Year Challenge for India’s Science Ecosystem

ESTIC 2026 brought together discussions on foundational science, industrial development, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and strategic technological capability.

The startup exhibition and poster track offered a platform for displaying deep-tech research, startup prototypes and emerging technologies. It also created opportunities for industry stakeholders, investors, academic researchers and policymakers to engage with developments across the conclave’s focus areas.

The wider programme connected research with questions of commercialisation, manufacturing, public welfare and national self-reliance.

Modi’s three-year timeline gives these discussions a practical benchmark: technological outcomes should be measurable and scalable, rather than confined to research announcements.

Meeting that ambition requires coordination across the entire innovation chain. Researchers need strong scientific infrastructure. Startups need access to capital and technical resources. Industry needs pathways to adopt new technologies. Policymakers must support an environment in which promising research can progress through development and deployment.

The 12 thematic priority domains provide a broad framework for this work, while funding and technology-transfer mechanisms can help connect research to commercial applications.

India’s next phase of scientific development will depend not only on the quality of discoveries but also on the country’s ability to turn them into reliable technologies.

ESTIC 2026 has put that challenge firmly on the agenda.

India’s three-year science challenge is a useful test of execution, not merely ambition. ESTIC 2026 has brought several important priorities into the same conversation: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum technologies, advanced manufacturing and the commercialisation of research.

The real work begins when the conference ends. Scientific breakthroughs need infrastructure, funding, skilled teams, regulatory pathways and industry partners. Startups need more than promising prototypes. Research institutions need credible routes to transfer intellectual property and translate discoveries into practical applications.

@shivendraedits