India, Europe must build a technology superhighway for mobility: NASSCOM

India and Europe must build a technology superhighway for mobility, recommended Vice Chairperson of NASSCOM, Kishor Patil on Thursday.

Speaking at ELIV 2026, the International VDI Congress for Automotive Electronics, held in Baden-Baden, Germany, he called for India and Europe to build a “technology superhighway” for mobility, outlining a new model of cross-border innovation looking towards 2035, in which both regions jointly invest in emerging technology frontiers, scale software and validation capabilities, and develop solutions for global markets.

Mr. Patil, also Co-founder, MD and CEO of KPIT Technologies, said, the automotive industry was going through a fundamental transformation driven by AI, software and engineering, and that deeper India-Europe collaboration could reshape the global automotive value chain, strengthen technology ownership and improve speed to market.

“The opportunity is significant. Industry projections indicate that India and Europe could together account for 23.1 million new-car sales by 2035 - nearly one in four cars sold globally - and have the potential for more than 7.5 million vehicle exports combined,’’ he said adding, this could create scope for shared technology development, manufacturing partnerships and stronger access to global markets.

According to Mr. Patil, Europe brings deep automotive engineering expertise, established R&D capabilities and decades of product and manufacturing leadership while India offers software and AI capabilities, engineering talent at scale and a growing domestic market.

Further, pointing to India’s $315 billion technology industry in FY26 and its 2,117 multinational technology and R&D centres as indicators of the ecosystem available to support this partnership, Mr. Patil said the next step was to move beyond traditional supplier relationships and programme-by-programme delivery towards long-term commitments, including joint R&D, product and platform ownership, intellectual property creation and global technology mandates.

He also highlighted the transition from software-defined to AI-defined vehicles, with AI able to accelerate design, software development, testing and validation, and support new services across a vehicle’s lifecycle. Investment opportunities for India and Europe lie across software-defined vehicle platforms, automotive AI, semiconductors, batteries, cybersecurity, digital validation, factory robotics and autonomous mobility, he further noted.

He also pointed to lessons from China’s automotive development model, including standardised platforms, parallel hardware and software development, virtual testing and closer ecosystem integration.

“The next decade of mobility will reward ecosystems that combine complementary capabilities, rather than geographies that try to build everything on their own. As vehicles become increasingly software-defined and AI-enabled, competitiveness will depend on how well we integrate capabilities across software, electronics, semiconductors, batteries, cybersecurity and validation,’’ he stated.