GitHub’s India developer base surges to 27 million as AI agents reshape coding

Developers in India have made more than 7.5 million contributions to open source AI projects on GitHub

• India added over 2 million developers to GitHub in 2026 so far
• India is GitHub's fastest-growing developer community worldwide
• Indian devs made 7.5M contributions to open-source AI

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GitHub has added more than two million developers from India in 2026 so far, taking its overall base to 27 million in the country.

This marks a jump from the company’s earlier figure of 21.9 million developers in October 2025, making India GitHub’s fastest-growing developer community worldwide. Globally, GitHub has over 180 million developers.

The surge highlights India’s growing importance to the Microsoft-owned platform as it works toward its goal of reaching one billion developers by 2030. The country now accounts for one in seven new developers globally.

"India has always been a foundation for the world’s software development. What we’re seeing now, as AI comes in, is growth across the board, whether it’s students learning in school, people working in startups, building their first startup, or large enterprises and GSIs (Global system integrators)," GitHub COO Kyle Daigle told Moneycontrol.

"No matter where you are on that continuum, India’s developers are able to join this shift from AI-assisted development into an increasingly agent-first era,” Daigle added.

India is also home to the world's largest open source contributor base and is the second largest source of open source contributions overall, behind only the United States. Developers in India have made more than 7.5 million contributions to open source AI projects on GitHub, the company said.

Open-source projects such as Hyperswitch (payments), ERPNext (enterprise), ToolJet (low-code), and Bruno (API testing) which are built in India are witnessing global adoption, it added. GitHub’s earlier estimates suggest that India will reach 57.5 million developers by 2030.

What's driving the developer surge on GitHub?

Daigle said a big reason behind the surge in developers joining the platform, particularly in India, to the growing capabilities of AI in software development, which helping solve more problems. Tools like GitHub Copilot and the agentic CLI are making it easier to tackle them at scale.

“A year ago, AI was doing a lot of code generation, but it was mainly a one-to-one experience, where I asked it to do something and it responded," Daigle said. "Now, with GitHub Copilot and newer tools like the GitHub Copilot CLI, I can pose a problem, put it into autopilot mode, and it continues to work, think, and use the context of my code, along with an understanding of what I care about as a developer"

"It can make significant progress on a single problem without me having to sit and review everything line by line. That shift has sped up everything, from the number of commits to pull requests and repositories,” he added.

GitHub's India push

Daigle said the company is aiming to 'match the enthusiasm' and growth that Indian developers are driving here through a range of initiatives, including conducting community meetups and supporting a range of developer communities in the country.

GitHub has previously hackathons with customers such as Infosys in India, where employees and students participate together. It has also partnered with communities such as Hack Club, which is run by teenagers and helps high school students learn coding and build projects as part of these initiatives.

“We have over 100 campus experts here in India, where we work with students and universities to give them access to GitHub,” Daigle said. “Our Student Developer Pack allows students to sign up and access GitHub tools, along with tools from leading companies, so they can use the same tools professionals use day to day.”

Over the past year, Microsoft has brought GitHub closer to its CoreAI unit, headed by Jay Parikh, as the platform becoming increasingly important to the software giant's broader strategy to woo developers. Former GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke left the company last year, with the rest of GitHub’s leadership team reporting directly to the CoreAI team.