Despite President Donald Trump’s hardline stance on the H-1B program, which has dimmed hopes for many in the U.S. tech and immigrant communities, a very different mood prevails in the heart of India’s New Delhi, where confidence in the visa’s future still runs high.
Months after Trump announced a hefty $100,000 charge for companies sponsoring H-1B workers, people walking into the Delhi metro station near IIT Delhi noticed something unexpected.
As Bloomberg noted that large advertisements from an AI-focused recruiting company were hard to miss, spread across the area. The banner stated, “We still sponsor H-1Bs” and “$100K isn’t going to stop us from hiring the best.”
Bloomberg also pointed out that the ads aren’t limited to one metro stop as similar banners are showing up across major engineering campuses throughout India.
For decades, IIT graduates have headed to the United States to build careers in tech, finance, and other high-growth fields. Many have gone on to shape the global corporate landscape. Among the most prominent are Google CEO Sundar Pichai and IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, both of whom began their journeys on IIT campuses before rising to lead two of America’s biggest tech companies. Here’s a fresh, plagiarism-free rewrite from a U.S. media perspective:
While large U.S. companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs now run major technology hubs in India, and the country’s startup scene continues to accelerate. An IIT professor told Bloomberg that this momentum is giving young engineers the confidence to build their careers and even launch new ventures, without leaving India.
Trump introduced a $100,000 fee for all new H-1B applications, the visa that allows foreign workers to take jobs in the United States. The announcement sparked worry at first, but several professors in India now say the move could actually push some skilled Indians to build their futures at home. The Common App reports that applications from Indian students to U.S. colleges have dropped 14 percent since Trump returned to the White House.
READ: Indian mid-tier IT finds stability as H-1B costs soar (
The banner has sparked a wave of conversation on social media, with users jumping in to share their reactions. Posts, comments, and hot takes have been pouring in as people debate what the ad says about the future of tech talent and the shifting mood around overseas opportunities.
One of the users wrote on X, “IITs are a pathway to escape India, not to build India.” While another, “Dear India, Stop wasting time on preparing for the IIT JEE, Just learn to make your things like LLM AI, Software, Hardware and other Industry. Ukhad kya liya JEE karne ka badh? kya banaya tune? Dhek China log ne AI, Robots aur bahot sare advance chig develop kiya, aur tu calculus and assignment karne bhetha hai.”
While one acknowledged, IIT, writing, “Please dont follow this stupid advice. IIT NIT has very supportive infrastructure + environment that will actually help and support you to work and build whatever the hell you want. This kind of infra and env you can never get in your home or in any tier 3 collage.”