Well when your top engineers get paid 25k sure you can do it for a fraction of the cost. Why couldn't you. Indian military already has tons of tech that if they bring to the civil sector they could use to compete with whatever. The problem is usually corruption and funding. The intelligence is there, in a billion people there are a few million outliers.

Heck most of American Fortune 500's are leveraging Indian brains to increase profits. Google is run by an Indian and so is Microsoft. There are Vikram Musks that are already captains of industry in America. Born and raised in India.

India is a country of disparity. Both intellectual and economic. That problem is not going to be solved any time soon. But if Indians want to create companies to compete on the global stage there is not much stopping them other than their own government and financial systems.