BHUBANESWAR: A market leader in IT services, India’s next target is to have a significant share in the global software product market that is expected to touch $ one trillion by 2025, said Director General of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) Omkar Rai.
Speaking to The Express, Rai said the country cannot move with only IT services. It has to shift from IT services to software product.
Though India is most preferred IT services nation and has about 56 per cent global outsourcing market, its share is very negligible in terms of software product business. It stands at $8 billion against the global software market of $511 billion. “Since most of IT talents are from the country, why cannot we create products that are owned by Indian entities? Even if the products are acquired by multi-nationals, wealth will percolate here. Our target is to contribute $80 billion to $90 billion to the global market in next six years,” he said.
Rai said STPI in collaboration with state Governments, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and industries is setting up 28 Centres of Excellence (CoE) in 22 cities to achieve the target.
All the CoEs that focus on artificial intelligence, data analytics, internet of things, virtual and augmented reality, financial, medical and health technologies, legal technology and innovation, gaming and animation, block chain and autonomous-connected-electric-shared vehicles (ACES) to capitalise on emerging technologies will be made operational by early 2021.
“Bhubaneswar will have a significant share in the software market. Of the three operational CoEs in the country so far, while Virtual and Augmented Reality Centre of Excellence is already functional at IIT-Bhubaneswar, the Electropreneur park will be ready at the STPI’s Gothapatna facility by March next year,” he informed.
“At a growth rate of 14 per cent, IT exports from Odisha was `4000 crore in 2018-19,” he added. The Electropreneur park coming up at Bhubaneswar will be the second largest in the country after the one at Delhi University. While the STPI has already set up a FabLab, a SmartLab is coming up at IIIT-Bhubaneswar in next six months. Rai met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik recently and apprised him of STPI’s initiatives.