India’s government is giving a $1 billion boost to the local creator economy

India is making a ten-digit investment in its homegrown creator community. As the world’s most populous nation continues to outpace all other countries in terms of YouTube traffic, its central government is committing $1 billion to help local video producers reach fans around the world.

Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, announced the $1 billion investment (which equates to ~83.6 billion Indian rupees) during a press briefing at the 2025 WAVES summit in Mumbai. “A USD 1 billion fund will be created for the creator economy, ensuring that our energetic creators—using the latest technologies—can scale up, upgrade their production, and tap into global markets,” Vaishnaw said.

Since YouTube arrived in India more than 15 years ago, the South Asian nation has become one of the cradles of creator culture. Online video has penetrated Indian society at all levels; rural villages have become creator hotspots, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has brought in millions of viewers on a personal channel.

India’s blossoming creator economy has spawned a sprawling industry full of professionals who operate on platforms like YouTube. (TikTok has been banned in India

since June 2020.) According to Entrepreneur, the Indian creator economy currently supports four million influencers and is expected to reach a valuation of 33.7 billion rupees (~$391 million) by 2026.

Even before Indian creators received support from local and national authorities, they reached unprecedented heights on YouTube. Indian channels always claim the most chart positions in our weekly rankings of the 50 most-watched YouTube channels. Much of that traffic comes on YouTube Shorts, where South Asian content is becoming an international force. At a YouTube Brandcast event held last year in Delhi, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan noted that Indian creators have notched more than one trillion lifetime views on Shorts.

It’s hard to imagine how that industry could get any bigger, but the Modi administration’s $1 billion investment will take local content sky-high. Indian creators are already dominant in their home country; now, they’re ready to introduce themselves to the rest of the world.