India Overtakes U.S. to Become World’s Largest Contributor to Open-Source

India has officially overtaken the United States to become the world’s largest base of open-source contributors, marking a major milestone in the country’s rise as a global coding powerhouse, according to GitHub’s Octoverse 2025 report.

In 2025 alone, more than 5 million Indian developers joined GitHub, accounting for over 14% of all new accounts created worldwide. The country now leads in the total number of contributors to public and open-source repositories on the platform.

“India added more than 5.2 million developers in 2025, which accounts for a little over 14% of GitHub’s total 36 million new developers this year,” the report said. “That makes India the single largest source of new developers on GitHub this year, continuing its rapid rise since 2020.”

GitHub projects that by 2030, India will host more than 57 million developers, representing one in every three new developers globally.

While India dominates in the number of contributors, the United States still leads in contribution volume, indicating higher per-developer activity. Meanwhile, Brazil, Indonesia, and Germany are emerging as new open-source hubs, underscoring a global decentralisation of software innovation.

The report credits India’s rapid growth to AI-assisted coding tools, expanded internet access, and government-backed digital skilling initiatives. With nearly 80% of new developers using GitHub Copilot in their first week, AI is now a defining feature of India’s developer culture—powering its evolution from a talent hub to a creative engine of global open source.

GitHub’s 2025 data, covering September 2024 to August 2025, revealed 630 million hosted projects and over 180 million developers. Contributions to public projects hit 1.12 billion, with 43.2 million pull requests. The platform also saw a 30% faster fix rate for critical vulnerabilities and a 26% drop in critical security alerts year-over-year.