New Delhi, Dec 25 : With large-scale funding for research and innovation, Indiaâ??s science and technology (S&T) sector made a significant leap in 2025.

The sector saw improvement in global rankings and advances in frontier technologies, semiconductor development, and AI-based missions.

In 2025, the country rose to the 38th position among 139 economies in the World Intellectual Property Organization's Global Innovation Index (GII) 2025. India made a big leap from 81st rank in 2015.

Four Indian cities also featured among the top 100 innovation clusters: Bengaluru (21), Delhi (26), Mumbai (46), and Chennai, all of which improved rankings this year.

In a significant push to incentivise private sector participation in R&D, the government this year launched the Research, Development and Innovation Fund in July. The fund was launched with a total outlay of Rs 1.0 Lakh crore over six years, out of which Rs 20,000 crore was allocated for FY 2025-26.

The National Quantum Mission (NQM), focussed on building India's quantum tech ecosystem, established operational hubs across 43 institutions by mid-2025.

Under the Mission, the government has released Rs 450.99 crore in FY 2025-26, and Rs 55.44 crore has been utilised till November 2025.

Further, under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS), focused on building Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) capabilities, major initiatives undertaken in 2025 include projects like "Bharat-Gen" (Generative AI for Indian languages) and bolstering digital infrastructure for cybersecurity and smart applications.

The LLM-based platform integrates text, speech, and image modalities, offering seamless AI solutions in 22 Indian languages.

The National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) saw the installation of 37 supercomputers with a total computing power of 40 Petaflops in 2025.

These systems are set up in leading institutions like IISc, IITs, C-DAC, R&D Labs, and also in several academic institutions and research organisation in the Tier-II and Tier-III cities across the country.

These supercomputers have supported over 10,000 researchers, including more than 1,700 PhD scholars from over 200 academic and research institutions.

Notably, the IndiaAI Mission, with a budget of over Rs 10,300 crore, deployed 38,000 GPUs as of 2025 to provide affordable computing power to startups and researchers.

In 2025, India also rapidly expanded its AI ecosystem with several key Centres of Excellence (CoEs) focused on sectors like education, healthcare, agriculture, urban governance, and clean Energy, spurred by the Union Budget 2025-26

With the DHRUV64 Microprocessor, India launched its first fully indigenous 1.0 GHz, 64-bit dual-core microprocessor in December 2025. Developed by C-DAC, the chip is designed for 5G, IoT, and automotive applications.

VIKRAM3201 became the first Make-in-India 32-bit microprocessor specifically qualified for harsh space environments.

The government's flagship schemes like INSPIRE, INSPIRE-MANAK, and WISE-KIRAN benefited lakhs of school students, researchers, and women scientists.

India also launched its first R&D roadmap for Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) in December 2025 to accelerate its net-zero mission.

/IANS