Credit: Special Arrangement
Bengaluru: Bengaluru is now turning into the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and quantum computing capital of India, with the city attracting 58 per cent of AI startup funding in the last five years — amounting to $872 million — according to the Bengaluru Innovation Report 2025, released at the Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS) on Wednesday.
Bengaluru ranks No. 5 among the Top-50 AI cities globally, and 48 per cent of the Global Capability Centers’ (GCCs) talent pool in Bengaluru is engaged in high-end roles, such as engineering and R&D. The report also mentioned that global AI giants, such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Graphcore, have set up bases in the city.
The city is home to over 2.5 million software engineers, constituting a substantial portion of the city’s 13 million population, and about 1.5 lakh-2 lakh new employees are welcomed by Bengaluru over a period of time, and they comprise 40-45 per cent of total tech hiring.
Interestingly, 50 per cent of the country’s AI/ML talent pool is based in Karnataka, and the state hosts 16 centres of excellence in AI, fintech, and quantum computing.
There are 1,600 active women-led startups that have been founded in Bengaluru since 2010, which have raised $13.4 billion so far, followed by Delhi-NCR with $10 billion total capital.
After Silicon Valley, New York, Beijing and London, Bengaluru is the fifth largest unicorn hub globally, with 53 unicorns valued at $192 billion. Bengaluru’s unicorns contribute 42 per cent of the country’s total unicorn valuation.
The city also leads in nurturing ‘soonicorns’ — startups with unicorn potential — with 39 soonicorns already in Bengaluru.
In the report, IT-BT Minister Priyank Kharge said the state accounts for nearly 40 per cent of GCCs, and the goal is to double this presence by 2029.
The report also mentioned that between 2020 and 2023, the city recorded the highest number of patents in Computer Science (503), Electronics (473), and Communication (441) in India.
50 products by startups launched
The Department of Electronics, IT, BT and S&T launched 50 products/solutions by startups on Day 2 of BTS. These products/solutions are multi-disciplinary and sector-agnostic, ranging from IT/ITeS, AgriTech, MedTech, healthcare/wellness, CleanTech, AI, DeepTech, IoT, cybersecurity, SaaS, R&D, AVGC, and ESDM. These include electronic devices using AI and IoT, automotive manufacturing, avionics & defence, effluent air treatment, SaaS platforms, apps to prevent fraudulent transactions, digital theatre platform, and smart warehousing, among others.