New Delhi, June 15 -- NICE, France - Narendra Modi stood beside Emmanuel Macron on Saturday and told an audience of investors and engineers that India has stopped being a country that buys technology and become one that builds it. "A decade ago, the world saw India primarily as a technology adopter," the prime minister said at the inauguration of Bharat Innovates 2026. "Today, however, India is rapidly emerging as a technology provider." The sentence was the entire argument of his European tour compressed into one line, and it was aimed less at the room than at the markets and governments watching from outside it.

Bharat Innovates 2026 is a three-day conclave that runs through Monday at the Palais des Expositions in Nice, organized by In...