New Delhi, Feb. 1 -- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget for 2026-27 in Parliament on Saturday. The speech laid out proposals on semiconductors, electronics, AI, data centres, critical minerals, and IT services. This article covers each one, in the order they appeared from the speech.

The technology and semiconductor section this year spanned from mining rare earth minerals, through chip design and electronics assembly, to cloud infrastructure and AI deployment.

The government acknowledged that the first phase of the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) had already broadened the country's capabilities in the sector. The next phase goes further. Sitharaman told the Parliament

"We will launch ISM 2.0 to produce eq...