New Delhi, Feb 5: The Union Budget’s announcement of a tax holiday till 2047 for foreign investors investing in Indian data centres dedicated to artificial intelligence for global use is being widely interpreted as a structural shift in India’s digital growth strategy. Industry leaders believe the move could trigger what many are calling India’s “AI Boom 3.0”, following the country’s earlier BPO and IT-led expansion phases.
A Familiar Growth Pattern, This Time with a Strategic Twist
India’s rise as a global services powerhouse has historically followed distinct cycles. The BPO boom of the 1990s and early 2000s leveraged English-speaking talent and time-zone advantages to service Western economies. This was followed by the IT services boom of the 2000s and 2010s, catalysed by the Y2K transition and large-scale outsourcing, which helped create a 200 billion technology services industry and global firms such as Infosys and TCS.
“This is not just another outsourcing wave,” said Shubham Mishra, Founder of Rock My Sales. “For the first time, policy is clearly aligned toward building AI for global use from India. That shifts India’s role from being a back-office executor to becoming a creator and exporter of intelligence.”
STEM Talent as the Core Enabler
India produces an estimated 1.5 million STEM graduates every year, giving it one of the largest technology and engineering talent pools globally. With AI infrastructure now incentivised to be built domestically, this workforce can be directly deployed toward building, training, and optimising AI models for global markets.
“When you combine policy stability with India’s scale of STEM talent, the result is a powerful competitive advantage,” said Latika Sharma, Managing Partner at Rock My Sales. “This creates the conditions for India to emerge as a low-cost, high-scale AI services exporter, serving global enterprises while building intellectual capital locally.”
Implications for Brands, Marketing, and the Digital Economy
With AI compute becoming cheaper and faster within India, domestic firms are likely to gain access to advanced AI-powered tools for performance marketing, hyper-personalisation, and analytics.
“This policy won’t replace marketers,” added Mishra. “But it will make lazy, formula-driven marketing unsustainable.”
Looking Ahead
As global enterprises evaluate destinations for next-generation AI infrastructure, India’s combination of cost efficiency, talent depth, and long-term policy clarity positions it as a compelling proposition.