I have spent more than three decades in this industry. So, when I read about the US government’s latest decision to suspend certain technology companies from filing applications under the permanent labour certification or PERM programme, I was a bit less worried than the headlines suggested.
One number explains why. Out of the 117,849 PERM certifications last year, Indian IT companies accounted for fewer than 1,400—less than 2 percent. So the direct impact is far smaller than it first appears.
We are increasingly living in a world that is very inward and protective. Since the Covid pandemic, nations everywhere are trying to build domestic capability and protect local labour markets. These restrictions are not a one-off and US’s moves fit that pattern.
This year alone, the US has intensified its tightening of H-1B policy. Canada has stepped up scrutiny of work and study permits. The UK has raised salary and skill thresholds, cut eligible roles and shortened the student-to-work transition. Italy's EU Blue Card delays and Australia's stricter student visa rules add further friction.
There are counterweights. Germany and France offered more open talent mobility policies in 2025, creating alternative pathways for skilled professionals. But the direction of travel today calls for a strategy.
But the debate keeps confusing two separate things. Immigration is about who settles in a country. Skilled talent mobility is about moving expertise to where a problem needs solving, often for a defined period. Treating them as one leads to policies that hurt the very companies it claims to protect.
The H-1B is a temporary (non-immigrant) visa category that allows employers to petition for ‘highly-educated foreign professionals’ to work in ‘specialty occupations’. According to a 2023 report from the Cato Institute, about 40 percent of all total factor productivity growth is attributable to skilled immigrants in the US.
Yet, over the years, Indian technology companies in the US have sharply cut the number of H-1B employees on their rolls and steadily expanded local hiring. As per available data, H-1B issued to the leading Indian and India-centric companies has decreased from 14,792 in 2015 to 10,162 in 2024. H-1B workers for the top 10 among the companies are in lower single-digit percentage of their entire employee base.
Indian technology companies work with a majority of Fortune 500 enterprises in the US, enabling innovation, improving productivity and supporting their global competitiveness. They have also spent more than $1.1 billion strengthening the US science, technology, engineering and mathematics pipeline, working with over 130 universities and colleges, reaching 29 lakh students and upskilling over 2.5 lakh employees.
In the age of AI, mobility matters more, not less. AI will not shrink the demand for software; it will multiply it.
AI implementation requires deep capabilities in data engineering, systems architecture, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, industry-specific processes, AI governance and the integration of new technologies with existing enterprise systems. Every business will need more systems, data, automation, and the people and capabilities to build them.
These capabilities cannot always be developed locally at the speed at which technology is evolving. Nor are they evenly distributed across countries. The temporary movement of specialised talent can help build local capabilities through knowledge transfer, training and joint development.
Expertise must be able to move quickly across borders. Tying that movement to the politics of immigration slows down innovation for everyone.
It is time to retire the old story that Indian IT was built on low cost. Cost opened the door. In fact, what kept clients coming back for three decades was capability, at a depth and scale that no other country can match. That is the advantage India has built, and it is what companies and countries around the world rely on today.
That advantage is about to matter more.
The opportunity today for enterprises is architecture, orchestration, product engineering, cybersecurity, AI implementation, industry solutions, and, eventually, ownership of products and intellectual property. Indian teams today are already deciding what gets built.
The key proof points to this are global capability centres (GCCs). India remains the leading global destination for GCCs with 2,117 of them employing over 23 lakh professionals and generating more than $98.4 billion in annual revenue, with 517 global titans already running GCCs in the country. US-headquartered enterprises account for 53 percent of India's established GCC presence. Europe accounts for a third of India’s base with 166 global titans already operating as GCCs. Beyond the Western corridors, global titan GCCs across the Asian continent are already eyeing to open their capability centres in India.
For 30 years, growth in revenue and growth in headcount travelled together. As AI lifts productivity, that link has weakened. Therefore, we need a new definition of success: India must host global decision-making along with more architects, products and IP built here.
If every nation is investing in its own capability, India must do the same, and with greater urgency. According to Nasscom's Strategic Review, India's domestic tech revenue grew nearly 8 percent in 2025-26 to $69 billion, outpacing exports, which grew at 5.6 percent to $246.4 billion.
The government has laid some useful groundwork. Over the past five years, India has pursued nine free trade agreements covering 38 countries. Agreements and negotiations involving the UK, the European Union, Australia and other economies are creating new possibilities for technology and services trade. Technology partnerships with the US (iCET and TRUST), Japan, France, Germany and Switzerland span AI, semiconductors, cyber security and critical minerals.
At the same time, national priorities around AI, semiconductors, cybersecurity, digital infrastructure, energy, space and advanced manufacturing can create sustained demand for technology innovation. Building stronger connections between industry, startups, academia and research institutions will be essential.
Industry should use them as channels for joint research, co-development and market access, and as forums to make skilled mobility a standing part of technology cooperation.
There is a broader principle at stake. Policy should move in step with technology and global growth. It should lift economies. Restrictions aimed at one nation's talent rarely stay contained; they slow innovation for everyone, including the country that imposes them.
For India, the priority must be two-fold: continue advocating for fair, predictable and enabling international frameworks while accelerating investment in its own technology and talent capabilities.
India's technology industry has navigated multiple transitions over the past three decades. Each has reinforced the importance of continuously building new capabilities rather than relying on advantages of the past.
Still, the bigger questions are ours to answer. Can we create architects rather than only programmers? Build products and IP here? Move more global decision-making to India? This has already started to happen, and we are seeing the proof points, too.
This industry is built on competitiveness and the capacity to innovate, and it has an enormous opportunity to contribute to economic growth.
Those fundamentals will not change, whatever lies ahead.
Rajesh Nambiar | President, Nasscom
(Views are personal)