Use of new tech could add 30% to India’s growth by 20205: McKinsey

Implementation of 12 new technologies ranging from mobile internet to cloud computing to advance genomics will have a huge impact on growth and social progress in India, a report by the McKinsey Global Institute released on Tuesday said.

The use of these technologies would add from $550 billion to $1.5 trillion a year by 2025, which is equivalent to 20-30 per cent of GDP growth, it found.

McKinsey said that the 12 "empowering" technologies will have the greatest impact on India's economic growth and its efforts to reduce poverty. The country's prowess in IT will play a big role in its efforts to improve living standards.

The global report assessed more than 100 technologies that are advancing rapidly around the world and identified twelve that are likely to have the most impact on addressing India's challenges.

The report, titled India's technology opportunity: Transforming work, empowering people groups the 12 technologies into three areas - technologies that digitize life and work, the mobile internet, the cloud, the automation of knowledge work, digital payments, and verifiable digital identity.

Smart physical systems, the internet, intelligent transportation and distribution systems, advanced geographic information systems (GIS), and next-generation genomics will also help significantly. Technologies for rethinking energy, unconventional oil and gas, renewable energy, and advanced energy storage are the other technologies that will change India's landscape.

Often, these technologies will be used in combination, generating a greater impact than any one of them when used alone.

"The combined economic impact of the 12 technologies in 2025 could be up to six times the current economic value of the Indian IT industry. They can contribute as high a share of the national economy as the entire manufacturing sector does today," says Anu Madgavkar, a senior fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute based in Mumbai.