‘Next phase of innovation must prioritise scale and deployment of deep-tech startups’

Calling for a shift from incubation to scale and deployment of technologies, Ashish Pandey, Innovation Lead at the Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, said India’s next phase of innovation must be driven by deeper industry integration and stronger private sector participation in research and development.

He was speaking at the sixth startup onboarding programme of the CODISSIA Defence Innovation and ATAL Incubation Centre (CDIIC), held in Coimbatore on Monday.

Mr. Pandey said Coimbatore hosts India’s only Defence Innovation Hub supported by AIM and iDEX, giving the city a strategic role in linking industrial capability with national security needs. He said such centres were critical for validating technologies and enabling their deployment within defence forces.

Referring to the completion of a decade of AIM, he said the initial phase focused on building innovation infrastructure across the country. He added that the emphasis would now move towards acceleration and scale-up through new initiatives. Among them is the Atal Acceleration Center for Scale-up of Startups (ACCESS), which aims to connect startups that have moved beyond early development stages with industry partners for pilots, investment and supply-chain integration. He said several sector-focused acceleration centres were planned across the country, with potential for Coimbatore to host some of them.

Mr. Pandey also outlined plans for a Deep Tech Reactor programme, intended to support deep-tech startups from early stages to deployment by addressing policy and regulatory barriers in coordination with line ministries.

R. Nandini, chairperson of GRG Educational Institutions, said India’s startup ecosystem had expanded rapidly, with Coimbatore emerging as a regional hub for manufacturing and deep-tech ventures. She encouraged students to move beyond classroom learning and consider entrepreneurship as a means of problem-solving and job creation.

V. Sundaram, Director, CDIIC, said the centre currently supports 43 startups, including 10 new teams onboarded on Monday, and called on corporates to support incubation and defence innovation through CSR partnerships.