By Hamza Faisal
India's listed artificial intelligence market could gain an additional $50 billion to $100 billion in market capitalization over the next two to five years as privately held AI companies move toward initial public offerings, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs published on October 21.
The report identified 84 privately held Indian companies with significant exposure to the AI value chain, estimating their combined current value at around $55 billion. Of these, 71 companies are at growth, late, infrastructure or buyout investment stages, with a combined estimated value of about $54 billion.
The IPO pipeline math
Goldman Sachs estimates that 25 to 50 percent of those 71 companies could go public over the next two to five years. Assuming an average IPO valuation around four times their current estimated value, those listings alone could add $50 billion to $100 billion to India's listed AI market.
The report added that the potential listings could broaden the market beyond its current concentration in AI infrastructure, opening up segments such as data centre operators, enterprise AI services, conversational AI, cloud and data management, healthcare AI and computer vision.
Funding has already tripled
Private equity funding for Indian AI startups has tripled since 2024, the report said, highlighting the rapid increase in investor interest in the sector. The wave is visible in recent deals: Sarvam is reportedly raising $300 million at a $3 billion valuation, Emergent closed a $130 million round, and the Jio IPO has put India's consumer-tech listings back in focus.
The report lands as India builds a distinctive AI story that looks very different from the American software narrative — less about frontier models and more about the physical infrastructure that powers them.
The hidden infrastructure trade
Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs identified 42 listed Indian "AI Enablers" across power, data centres and semiconductors with a combined market capitalization of roughly $670 billion. That basket has surged around 60 percent in 2026 while the Nifty declined 12 percent, making it the best-performing pocket of the Indian market by a wide margin.
The new report suggests the next leg of the trade is the private pipeline itself: 84 AI-exposed companies, $55 billion of current value, and a potential $100 billion listing wave. For investors who have been asking where India's AI exposure hides, Goldman's answer is increasingly specific — it is in power lines, data halls and IPO queues.
By Hamza Faisal
