India’s Northeast can no longer be viewed merely as a geographical frontier or a region requiring development assistance. It must increasingly be seen as one of India’s most important innovation frontiers. The eight states of the Northeast – Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura – sit at the intersection of India and Southeast Asia. This geography gives the region an importance that extends far beyond its population or economic size. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Act East Policy is to become a transformative economic doctrine rather than simply a connectivity strategy, the next great push must be towards innovation, entrepreneurship and technology in the Northeast.
The foundation for this transformation has already been laid. The Government has invested heavily in physical and digital connectivity. According to the Ministry of Communications, more than ₹1.5 lakh crore has been invested in digital and physical infrastructure in the Northeast over the past decade, including around ₹50,000 crore in BharatNet and Digital North East initiatives. More than 90 per cent of the region now has 4G coverage, while around 80 per cent of rural households are digitally connected through fibre. The significance of this transformation cannot be overstated. Connectivity is no longer merely about moving people and goods; it is about moving ideas, capital, knowledge and innovation.
The next question therefore is simple: what will the Northeast do with this connectivity?
There are encouraging signs. As of January 31, 2025, the eight Northeastern states had 2,109 startups recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade under Startup India. Assam accounted for 1,514 of these, followed by Manipur with 185, Tripura with 147, Nagaland with 88, Meghalaya with 63, Arunachal Pradesh with 55, Mizoram with 44 and Sikkim with 13. The number is still small when compared with India’s overall startup ecosystem, but that is precisely why the opportunity is enormous. The Northeast is not short of talent; it is short of scale, risk capital, mentorship, market access and institutional confidence.
India must therefore move from a development model that primarily brings infrastructure into the Northeast to one that creates innovation ecosystems within the Northeast.
The Act East Policy provides the perfect strategic framework for this transition. The Government has already positioned the region as India’s gateway to Southeast Asia. Projects such as the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project are designed to strengthen physical and commercial connectivity with ASEAN. Integrated Check Posts and Border Haats are also intended to deepen cross-border economic engagement. But highways and trade routes will only take the Northeast so far. The real Act East opportunity is to make Guwahati, Imphal, Shillong, Kohima, Aizawl, Agartala, Gangtok and Itanagar nodes of an India-ASEAN innovation corridor.
Imagine startups in Assam developing artificial-intelligence solutions for agriculture that can subsequently be deployed in Myanmar, Thailand or Vietnam. Imagine Nagaland becoming a centre for indigenous knowledge, creative industries and food innovation. Imagine Meghalaya emerging as a global destination for climate technology and sustainable tourism. Imagine Sikkim becoming a laboratory for organic agriculture, biotechnology and mountain economies. Imagine Arunachal Pradesh becoming a centre for drones, geospatial technology, renewable energy and biodiversity research. These are not fanciful possibilities. They are areas where the Northeast possesses natural or human advantages.
The region also has an extraordinary demographic asset: its young population. Young people in the Northeast are increasingly digitally connected, globally aware and entrepreneurial. The challenge is to ensure that their ambitions do not require permanent migration to Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi or Hyderabad.
This is where institutions must change their approach. IIT Guwahati, NITs, universities, technical institutions, private colleges and research centres across the Northeast should become engines of commercial innovation. Research cannot remain confined to academic papers. Students should be encouraged to build companies around local problems. Government departments should become early customers for successful innovations. Local industries should partner with universities. Venture capital funds should establish dedicated Northeast portfolios. Banks and financial institutions should develop risk models that understand the realities of emerging entrepreneurs rather than treating geographical distance as an automatic risk premium.
The Government already has an institutional foundation for this. The Software Technology Parks of India has established the OCTANE network of Centres of Entrepreneurship across the eight Northeastern states, with specialised focus areas including agricultural IoT, artificial intelligence, data analytics, healthcare, drones, gaming, animation, GIS and emerging technologies. The next step should be to connect these centres with national and international markets.
The Northeast also needs an innovation financing architecture designed specifically for its circumstances. The North Eastern Development Finance Corporation’s North East Enterprise Development Scheme has been supporting first-generation entrepreneurs, while the Union Government allocated ₹300 crore for the scheme for the period 2021-22 to 2025-26. Yet capital cannot simply be about loans. Startups need patient equity, seed funding, angel networks, venture capital and government-backed challenge funds.
India should consider establishing a dedicated Northeast Innovation and Deep-Tech Fund, bringing together the Union Government, state governments, private investors, CSR funds and global technology companies. Its mandate should be clear: finance businesses solving Northeast-specific problems with the potential to become national or global solutions.
There is another opportunity that must not be underestimated – traditional knowledge. The Northeast possesses enormous biodiversity, indigenous agricultural practices, handicrafts, textiles, cuisines and cultural traditions. Innovation does not always mean replacing tradition with technology. Sometimes it means using technology to take tradition to the world. Digital commerce, intellectual property protection, modern branding, AI-enabled design and global logistics can transform indigenous products into high-value international brands.
Tourism offers another major innovation opportunity. Instead of merely promoting the Northeast as an exotic destination, India should develop it as a laboratory for sustainable and experiential tourism. Adventure tourism, wellness, ecological tourism, homestays, indigenous cultural experiences and digital tourism platforms can create thousands of enterprises without destroying the region’s environmental character.
The Northeast is also strategically important to India’s security and economic future. Its borders with China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan give it a unique geopolitical position. A prosperous, technologically advanced and economically integrated Northeast strengthens India’s national security just as much as it strengthens the economy. Economic opportunity can become an instrument of strategic resilience.
Prime Minister Modi has repeatedly described the shift from Look East to Act East as a transformation in India’s approach to the region. At the Rising Northeast Investors Summit, he said the Northeast was moving from being regarded as a frontier to becoming a “front-runner” of growth. That vision now needs an innovation dimension.
The Northeast should not merely receive investment; it should generate intellectual property. It should not merely consume technology; it should create technology. It should not merely export commodities; it should export products, services, ideas and companies.
India’s next phase of Act East must therefore be about Act East through Innovation.
The roads, railways, airports, waterways and digital networks being built today are the physical foundation. The entrepreneurs, researchers, students and innovators of the Northeast must become the human infrastructure that carries India towards Southeast Asia.
The objective should not be to make the Northeast look like Bengaluru. It should be to make the Northeast uniquely competitive on its own terms.
If India can combine infrastructure with innovation, entrepreneurship with indigenous knowledge, and the energy of its Northeast youth with access to ASEAN markets, the region can become much more than India’s gateway to the East. It can become the country’s innovation gateway to the world.
That is the real promise of Act East – and India must now have the courage to innovate for it.
