Budget 2026: Industry Leaders Laud Defence Push, AI Incentives, and Services Growth

• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's ninth Union Budget receives strong approval from corporate leaders and policy veterans.
• Key highlights include continuity in defense spending, a major tax incentive for data centers, and a push for India as a global hub for services, manufacturing, and innovation.
• Bharat Forge's Baba Kalyani notes a sharp rise in defense capital expenditure, expecting large defense programs to become more vibrant, strengthening the domestic ecosystem.
• Amitabh Kant emphasizes 22 years of tax exemption for data centers, aiming to attract global AI and cloud investments, and highlights higher defense allocations for R&D and manufacturing.
• Salesforce's Arundhati Bhattacharya praises the cloud computing focus for accelerating digital adoption and PwC's Sanjeev Krishan points to structural reforms improving India's investment climate.

Why It Matters: Budget 2026 is seen as a continuity budget with future-facing bets on defense, AI, services, and urbanization.