Correspondent
New Delhi, February 27, 2026 — Nepal’s private sector has set an ambitious $100 billion economy target by 2030, and technology is being positioned as the central engine to achieve it. That message dominated the “Nepal–India Tech Forum 2026,” where policymakers and industry leaders pushed for deeper digital, AI and infrastructure integration between the two neighbours.
Organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) in partnership with the Embassy of Nepal in India, the New Delhi forum marked a strategic shift: elevating tech cooperation to the core of Nepal–India bilateral ties.
Nepal Makes Investment Pitch
Nepal’s Ambassador to India, Shankar Prasad Sharma, urged Indian IT giants to view Nepal as a serious digital investment destination. He pointed to Nepal’s National AI Policy 2025, expanding Digital Public Infrastructure, AI Excellence Centres planned across four provinces, and over 10,000 ICT graduates annually.
Backed by hydropower and nearing energy surplus status, Nepal pitched itself as a clean-energy hub for data centres and cloud infrastructure — while acknowledging talent migration and implementation gaps as pressing challenges.
India Expands Digital Footprint
India reaffirmed its commitment to embedding technology across trade, transit, rail, agriculture and health cooperation. The UPI–Nepal payment integration, operational since 2024, has already processed over a million transactions, with cross-border remittances nearing rollout.
Indian-backed startup exchanges and incubation programs were cited as early gains in building a shared innovation ecosystem.
Structural Shift, Not Symbolism
Business leaders argued Nepal’s macroeconomic fundamentals are stronger than widely perceived — with foreign reserves covering nearly 20 months of imports, inflation at 3–4%, and interest rates around 5.2%. The core problem: insufficient job creation driving youth migration.
Technology, they said, offers a structural fix — moving Nepal from remittance-led growth to innovation-led employment.
A headline proposal emerged: establishing an IIT campus in Kathmandu to anchor long-term institutional integration and talent development.
Payments, AI and Clean Data Centres in Focus
Visa Inc. called for a regulator-led India–Nepal digital payments corridor covering remittances, tourism and small trade, alongside digitization of SMEs. Nepal’s Investment Board extended an open invitation to Indian AI majors, cloud providers and data centre operators, highlighting renewable hydropower as a competitive advantage in a region hungry for sustainable digital infrastructure.
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