The new tech order will be built from Karnataka, said Priyank Kharge, Minister for Home, IT, BT & E-Governance, Government of Karnataka, at the ongoing Techsparks 2026 summit in Bengaluru.
In a fireside chat with Shradha Sharma, Founder & CEO, YourStory and The Bharat Project, the minister said the state government is focused on building the skill sets required to cater to the needs of the global market.
The minister elaborated the various measures taken by the Karnataka government to expand the skills base in the state. “We have to come up with a programme of ensuring that we build skill sets by the industry, for the industry, of the industry to ensure that people unlearn and relearn technologies that are going to be relevant for the next decade or so.”
The plan will not be limited to the technology sector and also focus also on blue-collar jobs in sectors such as manufacturing, he said.
The minister said that, in the last nine months, the state has attracted close to $4.9 billion investments just from the technology sector. Karnataka’s capital Bengaluru is already the fourth largest technology cluster in the world.
“Forty-three per cent of all tech investments in India come to Karnataka, and this speaks volumes about the availability of talent here,” the minister remarked.
Kharge also highlighted how the talent in the state is engaged in the various centres of excellence (CoE) that the government has created. These CoEs span multiple sectors including agriculture, aerospace, IoT, and AI. The minister said these CoEs have created more than Rs 10,000 crore in market valuation and added that these are run professionally by the industry, with minimum interference from the government.
The Karnataka government's ELEVATE programme provides equity-free grants to startups, and this has now been extended to deeptech startups under ELEVATE Nxt.
As part of Elevate Nxt, the state government provides Rs 1 crore of equity-free grant to deeptech startups focused on solutions for problems faced by citizens. It also provides market access programmes with 40 countries.
“We will be ensuring that we do everything in our capacity to ensure that you succeed as an entrepreneur,” the minister said.
The overall goal is to ensure IP creation, CoEs, state government grants, and local accelerator programmes drive the economic growth of Karnataka.
Edited by Swetha Kannan