National Technology Day, observed on 11th May every year, is celebrated to commemorate the successful nuclear test at Pokhran in the Indian state of Rajasthan in 1998 and mark significant achievements in science and technology, emphasizing its pivotal role in solidifying the nation’s position as a global leader in technological innovation.
National Technology Day 2026: Here’s what some industry experts say:
Sooraj Balakrishnan, Associate Director & Head of Marketing, Acer India
“National Technology Day reminds us that innovation must serve a larger purpose, while celebrating India’s technological progress and spirit of self-reliance. The theme ‘Responsible Innovation for Inclusive Growth’ reminds the need to build technology that is advanced, yet accessible and equitable. At Acer India, we believe true progress lies in bridging digital divides and empowering communities through purposeful innovation. As technology reshapes every aspect of life, responsibility must remain central, ensuring solutions are scalable, sustainable, and inclusive. The real impact of innovation will be measured not just by what we create, but by how many lives we uplift.”- Sooraj Balakrishnan, Associate Director & Head of Marketing, Acer India.
Sandip Weling, Whole-time Director and Chief Business Officer, Global Retail, Aptech Limited
“National Technology Day highlights the growing need to make technology impactful, accessible, responsible, and industry relevant. India’s rapidly expanding creator economy, with roughly 2 million+ creators influencing more than USD 350 billion in consumer spending, reflects how technology is opening new-age career and entrepreneurship opportunities for young talent. At the same time, government initiatives such as the introduction of AVGC labs across schools and institutions are helping build a stronger future-ready talent pipeline for the creative careers. As AI continues to transform content creation, animation, and storytelling, it is crucial to promote responsible innovation by encouraging originality, intellectual property rights, and creating greater awareness around security and copyright practices. Through our training brands, Aptech is focused on strengthening industry-integrated learning, expanding access to emerging technology education, and preparing students with future-ready skills across AI, AVGC-XR, virtual production, and creator-led industries. Our aim is to bridge the gap between education and employability while contributing to a more responsible, innovation-driven, and globally competitive creative ecosystem.” – Sandip Weling, Whole-time Director and Chief Business Officer, Global Retail, Aptech Limited.
Vinod Babu Bollikonda, Managing Director & Group CEO, Blue Cloud Softech Solutions Limited
“On National Technology Day, the focus must shift from simply advancing technology to using it responsibly. With AI and digital systems shaping real-world outcomes, prioritising ethical use, efficiency, and sustainability is no longer optional, it is essential to building trust and lasting impact. This also means ensuring data privacy, reducing bias in AI systems, and building transparency into how technology operates. At Blue Cloud Softech Solutions Limited, this translates into building solutions that are not only high-performing but also accountable and inclusive, ensuring technology drives meaningful and equitable growth. At the core of our approach is a simple belief: performance and responsibility must go hand in hand, because at India’s scale, trust will be the true measure of technological success.” – Vinod Babu Bollikonda, Managing Director & Group CEO, Blue Cloud Softech Solutions Limited.
Arif Khan, India Sales Director, Colt DCS
“Digital infrastructure is no longer a support function; it is becoming the core architecture on which economic growth, industrial competitiveness, and AI capability will depend for decades. Nations that approach it with long-term strategic intent, grounded in energy efficiency, resilience, and sovereign control, will retain the flexibility to shape their futures, while those that treat it as a procurement exercise risk embedding structural dependencies.The acceleration of AI has made data infrastructure a strategic asset. For India, the focus must be on expanding capacity in alignment with domestic realities such as energy availability, resource constraints, and development priorities. The strength of a digital economy will increasingly reflect how well these fundamentals are integrated into infrastructure decisions. Self-reliance in technology is the ability to make independent, informed choices at scale, built through depth of capability rather than isolation. This calls for a disciplined approach to trade-offs, ensuring that digital expansion does not strain energy systems or compromise long-term growth. Sustainable digital infrastructure is therefore a strategic imperative, with outcomes defined by the quality and durability of decisions taken today.” Arif Khan, India Sales Director, Colt DCS.
Piyush Jha, Group Vice President and Head – APAC, GlobalLogic
“As AI moves from digital interfaces into the physical world, responsible innovation is no longer optional; it becomes foundational. This year’s National Technology Day marks a decisive inflection point for India, where the conversation is rapidly shifting from capability to control. The emergence of advanced systems, including vulnerability-discovery models, has underscored the real risks of AI operating on legacy and mission-critical infrastructure, accelerating the need for stronger guardrails, regulatory oversight, and industry-wide governance frameworks.
As physical and agentic AI begin to interact with real-world systems, the convergence of software, data, and machines introduces new dimensions of risk, ranging from systemic failures to amplified vulnerabilities at scale. This demands that governance is not layered on after deployment, but engineered into the core through secure architectures, real-time observability, and accountable AI frameworks.At GlobalLogic, we have been building and scaling AI long before it became mainstream, embedding intelligence deep into engineering, platforms, and real-world systems. Today, with over 75 AI-powered solutions, 200+ AI-enabled client engagements, and nearly half of our business augmented by AI, our focus is on engineering differentiation that translates into real-world impact. Equally, we are investing in transforming talent at scale through platforms like GLX, driving over a million learning hours and delivering measurable gains of 10–30% across efficiency, cost, and retention through AI-led skilling. For us, the future of innovation will not just be defined by how intelligent systems become, but by how responsibly they are engineered, ensuring AI moves from insight to action in a way that is safe, resilient, and trusted by design.”Piyush Jha, Group Vice President and Head – APAC, GlobalLogic.
Sachin Panicker- Chief AI Officer, Fulcrum Digital
“National Technology Day is an opportunity to reflect not just on how far we have come in innovation, but on how responsibly we are shaping the next phase of technological progress. In today’s AI-first world, technology is no longer an enabler on the sidelines, it is core infrastructure powering how enterprises operate, make decisions and deliver value.As organisations accelerate adoption of AI, data and cloud, the conversation must evolve from innovation to accountability. Building intelligent systems at scale requires equal focus on governance, trust and safety. The real challenge is not deploying AI, but ensuring it is reliable, explainable and aligned with business and societal outcomes. At the same time, cybersecurity is no longer a support function, it is a business imperative. AI-driven threats are reshaping enterprise risk, making resilience and proactive defence critical to sustaining digital growth.We are also seeing a shift from traditional digital transformation to intelligent, autonomous operations, where systems are not just automated but adaptive. The organisations that will lead in this next phase are those that treat technology not just as a tool for efficiency, but as a foundation for responsible, resilient and future-ready growth.” –Sachin Panicker- Chief AI Officer, Fulcrum Digital
Ashish Tandon, Founder & CEO, Indusface
“Every National Technology Day, we tell ourselves a familiar story. Indian tech is at an inflection point, AI will disrupt everything, the future belongs to the bold. The story I’d rather tell is more specific. AI is going to create more digital doorways into businesses in the next three years than the internet did in its first twenty. Every agent, every API, every automated workflow is a new way for hackers to get in. Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic will ship the models. Someone has to make sure enterprises can deploy them without handing attackers the keys. That isn’t a constraint on innovation. It’s the precondition for it. The Indian technology firms that understand this won’t just survive the AI shift. They’ll define the category that comes out of it: security and trust, delivered at machine speed.” Ashish Tandon, Founder & CEO, Indusface.
Girish Hirde, Global Delivery Head at InfoVision
“Today, technology has reached a stage where its true test is not in what it can do, but in what it chooses to solve. At InfoVision, the belief is that intelligence without direction only amplifies noise, while intelligence guided by intent reshapes industries. Artificial intelligence, cloud, and data are no longer instruments of efficiency, they are instruments of judgment, influencing how enterprises perceive risk, opportunity, and growth. The difference now lies in the discipline to ask better questions before building faster answers. On this National Technology Day, our focus should be on building systems that make decisions traceable, outcomes predictable, and value impossible to ignore.” – said Girish Hirde, Global Delivery Head at InfoVision.
Dr. Preet Sandhu, Founder, AVPL International & Promoter, iQuantara
“On National Technology Day, India’s technology narrative is clearly shifting from software strength to deep tech leadership. The real opportunity lies in the convergence of AI, drones, and semiconductors – sectors that are not only driving innovation but also defining national capability. While rapid advancements in drones and AI signal strong momentum, their long-term scalability will depend on building a resilient, indigenous semiconductor ecosystem. For India, tech sovereignty is not just about innovation, but about owning the entire value chain. The focus now must be on enabling startups with patient capital, strengthening R&D, and ensuring consistent policy execution to turn this $100 billion opportunity into a sustainable global advantage.” – Dr. Preet Sandhu, Founder, AVPL International & Promoter, iQuantara.
