By Anjali Sharma
WASHINGTON – According to Goldman Sachs on Wednesday reported that India’s artificial intelligence ecosystem can add $50 to $100 billion to the country’s listed market capitalization over the next 2 to 5 years, supported by a potential surge in initial public offerings by privately held AI companies
The global investment bank in a research note estimated that 25-50% of 70 mid-to-late-stage private AI companies could enter the public markets during this period.
The potential listings could command a weighted average valuation of around four times their current estimated value.
Goldman Sachs said the IPO pipeline could expand the range of AI businesses represented in India’s stock markets, bring companies from several segments of the AI value chain into the listed universe.
Timothy Moe, co-head of Asia macro research and chief Asia-Pacific equity strategist at the bank, co-authored the report.
The report highlighted the growing flow of private capital into India’s AI sector. Private equity (PE) investments in Indian AI startups have tripled since 2024, while AI’s share of total PE allocations in the country has increased fourfold to approximately 20 per cent.
India has also emerged as one of the leading global destinations for AI investments.
According to Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index Report, India ranks among the top six destinations for private AI funding worldwide and among the top four for newly funded AI companies.
Goldman Sachs has identified 84 privately held companies as “Private AI Contenders”, with a combined estimated value of $55 billion. These companies account for 40% of all AI-related private capital raised in India since 2025 and operate across different parts of the AI ecosystem, including infrastructure, AI development and the adoption of AI technologies across industries.
Infrastructure and technology providers, classified as upstream AI enablers, represent the largest segment by estimated value.
These businesses operate across power generation, electrical equipment, transmission infrastructure, semiconductor supply chains, chip design, quantum computing, data centers cloud services and data management.
Goldman Sachs estimated the segment’s current value at $35 billion, made it the largest potential contributor to AI-related listings in the coming years.
The downstream segment, comprising companies that integrate AI into products and services, is the largest by number. It includes 42 companies, accounted half of the identified cohort, with a combined estimated value of $18 billion.
These companies apply AI technologies in areas such as computer vision, conversational AI, robotics and edge computing. Their applications also extend to healthcare, financial services, enterprise software, defence, cyber security and commerce.
The midstream segment includes companies focused on foundational AI research, model training and AI operations, remains comparatively small.
Goldman Sachs identified seven companies in this category, with a combined estimated value of $2 billion.
The bank expects upstream AI enablers to account for 66 per cent of prospective AI-related listings. Downstream AI adopters could contribute 31% while core AI developers in the midstream segment may account for the remaining 3% based on its assessment of the potential IPO pipeline.
The projected addition of $50 billion to $100 billion would be relatively small compared with the $670 billion universe of listed AI enablers identified in Goldman Sachs’ analysis.
The bank believes the potential listings could significantly broaden the representation of AI businesses in India’s equity markets.
The prospective IPOs could bring several currently underrepresented segments into the public markets, including data centre operators, enterprise AI service providers, cloud and data management companies, healthcare AI businesses and computer vision specialists.
The findings pointed to expand pipeline of privately funded AI companies that could eventually seek public-market capital. If the anticipated listings materialize, investors could gain access to a wider range of businesses supporting AI infrastructure, developing core technologies and deploying AI solutions across sectors of the Indian economy.
