STPI's 28 new centres of excellence to spur exports, meet domestic demand

Software products exports seen rising to $80-90 billion by 2025

Jayajit Dash Bhubaneswar

2 min read Last Updated : Oct 05 2019 | 9:21 PM IST

Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) aims to boost exports from its upcoming 28 Centres of Excellence in the country.

STPI plans to establish 28 such centres with eminent focus on software products innovation and R&D. The products designed at the centres will cater to the demand of the domestic market and also strengthen exports.

“Over the years, the IT industry has moved up the value chain. Our aim is to create more software products and grab a bigger share of the global markets. Currently, our software products exports are valued at $8 billion against the global market size of $500 billion. But by 2025, they can potentially jump to $80-90 million. Software products innovations have the power of disruption and our planned Centres of Excellence (CoEs) will help boost development of new products’, said Omkar Rai, director general at STPI.

The new CoEs are coming up in Chennai, Bengaluru, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Mohali, Hyderabad, Gurugram and also six of them in the North eastern region. These state-of-the-art centres need around Rs 400 crore with funds contributed by Union electronics & IT ministry, respective state governments, industry players and STPI’s own accruals.

“The centres could come up at STPI or academic institutions. STPI also has Electropreneur Park which was first set up in collaboration with the Indian Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA) within Delhi University in 2016 and the second is coming up in Bhubaneswar. Each of our CoEs will nurture 20 start-ups every year. Four such centres have already been launched”, Rai added.

As of now, the Indian IT industry is growing 13 per cent year-on-year. However, the new CoEs will help accelerate this growth to 20 per cent, he felt.

STPI has a presence in an array of cities- Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Trivandrum, Kanpur, Kolkata Bhubaneswar, Mumbai, Nagpur, Warangal, Kakinada, Lucknow Pune, Surat, Tirupati, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam. Over 50 per cent of the software exports from the country valued at Rs 4.16 trillion in last fiscal happened from the STPI registered units.