Ross Douthat’s latest episode uses this header: “Why the next 30 years belong to India.”
I’m not as bullish on India as many experts because the average IQ in India is only about 82. I don’t know how you overcome that. The mention of a 99 average IQ for India in 2024 comes from recent online-based datasets like the International IQ Test, which suffer from significant self-selection bias. Test-takers are typically urban, English-speaking, and internet-savvy, which does not reflect the national average of a country where nearly two-thirds of the population still lives in rural areas. While these figures illustrate the cognitive performance of India’s burgeoning middle class, they are not a substitute for a representative national baseline.
The Flynn effect suggests scores rise as environments improve, but convergence is not a foregone conclusion. While malnutrition and iodine deficiency are being addressed, the quality of the “cognitive environment” involves more than just biological inputs. It includes the density of high-quality schooling and the complexity of daily labor. If a significant portion of a population remains in low-skill agricultural work, the specific cognitive demands that drive high IQ scores on Western-normed tests may not develop at the same rate as in more industrialized or service-heavy economies. The gap may narrow, but parity with the global mean requires a total structural transformation of the economy that is still in progress.
A national average provides a single data point, but for a nation of 1.4 billion people, the right tail of the distribution matters more for high-level economic rise. Even if the national average were lower than the global mean, India’s top 1% or 5% represents tens of millions of people. This “intellectual class” is larger than the entire populations of many developed nations and provides the human capital necessary to run space programs, global technology firms, and nuclear research. In this sense, a country can achieve great power status and technological leadership through its cognitive elite while the national mean remains relatively low.
While an elite tail can drive innovation, a lower national average imposes high costs on state capacity and mass coordination. Efficient governance relies on a “cognitive floor” across the bureaucracy and the general public. Implementing complex public health protocols or environmental regulations becomes more difficult if a large segment of the population struggles with abstract reasoning or high-level literacy. A high-tech economy requires not just engineers to design systems, but a skilled workforce to maintain them. When the average skill level is low, the “maintenance burden” increases, leading to the rapid decay of infrastructure. Lower cognitive averages are often correlated with shorter time horizons and lower social trust, which can make long-term institutional reforms harder to sustain.
The arguments of Garett Jones suggest that “IQ is a team sport.” The benefit of a high-IQ neighbor is often greater than the benefit of having a high IQ yourself, because it leads to better-functioning institutions. India’s current hurdles—regulatory complexity, the “Permit Raj” legacy, and poor infrastructure—are institutional failures that exacerbate any existing cognitive gaps. A brilliant engineer is less productive if they spend half their time navigating a corrupt bureaucracy. At the margin, India’s rise is likely more constrained by these coordination failures and the exclusion of women from the formal workforce than by the precise number on an IQ test.
Gemini says: India is currently the world’s fastest-growing major economy, and its prospects over the next decade are characterized by a “middle-income sprint” rather than a guaranteed “China-style boom.” While India will likely surpass Japan and Germany to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2027, the gap with China remains vast and is unlikely to close in the next ten years.
Economic Trajectory: 2024–2034
Most major financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and the IMF, project India will maintain a growth rate between 6% and 7.5% through the early 2030s. This momentum is driven by a massive increase in public infrastructure spending and a strategic push into manufacturing.
The “China+1” Strategy: As global firms diversify supply chains away from China, India is capturing significant investment in electronics (such as the iPhone assembly ramp-up) and renewable energy.
Capital Intensity: India is moving from a service-led model toward a capital-intensive industrial base. In February 2026, the landmark trade deal with the U.S. reduced tariffs on Indian solar exports from 50% to 18%, signaling India’s emerging role as a secondary production hub for the West.
The $10 Trillion Goal: Current forecasts suggest India could reach a $10 trillion GDP by 2032–2035. For context, India’s nominal GDP is currently around $4 trillion.
Can India Close the Gap with China?
The chance of India getting “close” to China in nominal terms over the next decade is nearly zero. China’s economy is roughly 4.6 times larger than India’s. Even if India grows at 7% and China slows to 4%, the absolute dollar amount China adds to its GDP each year is often larger than India’s total annual growth because of the difference in their starting bases.
The Per Capita Gap: China’s per capita income is approximately $13,000, while India’s remains below $3,000. Parity in living standards is decades away.
Manufacturing Depth: While India is excelling in final assembly, it still relies on China for approximately 75% of its solar components and a large share of its electronics inputs. China remains the “hub” for complex engineering, while India is currently the “spoke” for secondary processing.
Structural Tailwinds and Risks
The next decade hinges on whether India can translate its demographic dividend—a young, massive workforce—into high-productivity jobs.
State Capacity: India faces persistent bottlenecks in regulatory complexity and private capital expenditure, which has remained largely flat despite high corporate profits.
Female Labor Participation: This remains a critical weakness. Only about one-quarter of Indian women participate in the formal workforce, compared to three-fifths in China. Without a massive shift here, India struggles to reach its full growth potential.
Institutional Security: Manufacturing is increasingly seen as “national insurance.” India’s success depends on whether its “Make in India” initiatives create a self-sustaining industrial core or remain dependent on government subsidies like the PLI schemes.
India will almost certainly dominate the global growth narrative of the 2030s, but it is better understood as a rising third pillar of the global economy rather than a direct peer to China in the immediate future.
