On Capitol Hill not long ago, the US senator, Ted Cruz, held up a golden chip and declared it was worth a billion dollars — a harbinger of quantum computing’s future. He called it proof of America’s technological leadership. That patriotic flourish did not resonate well in Sydney where physicists, who had contributed to the creation of that very chip, shook their heads at American techno-nationalism. It was Australia, they pointed out, that had quietly built one of the world’s most advanced quantum industries.
For India, the scene should be a wake-up call. While the United States of America, China, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and even Singapore are moving to secure their place in the Hall of Fame of technologies that will define the century, India risks being left behind. Our IT services companies have outstanding master craftsmen and super-skilled builders for global businesses but we are seen as absent at the foundations — the semiconductors, systems and infrastructure that power the digital age.
India’s IT services industry is one of our proudest achievements. TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL — these firms pulled India into the global economy. They provided jobs, foreign exchange, and something less tangible but equally valuable for their customers: trust.
These marquee names became master craftsmen of the digital age — building, repairing, and refining the systems on which global business depends. They were super-skilled master builders who made themselves indispensable to governments, banks, manufacturers, and Fortune 500 giants.
But master builders work best when they also get to design the blueprints. The question before India is whether we can move from building what others have imagined to imagining and owning the digital foundations of the future.
Everywhere else, the race is on.
- Australia has poured a billion dollars into PsiQuantum and seeded dozens of start-ups; its firms now win contracts from DARPA and the US department of defence.
- South Korea nurtured Samsung and SK Hynix into semiconductor titans.
- Japan is reinventing itself with Rapidus, a government-backed consortium racing to build 2-nanometer chips with IBM.
- Singapore, with no domestic market, has carved niches in chip design and manufacturing through precision incentives.
- China uses regulation as a geopolitical weapon. Its State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) claimed authority over Intel’s proposed acquisition of Tower Semiconductor, withholding approval until the deal collapsed — retaliation for US sanctions. Broadcom’s takeover of VMware was approved only after a Biden-Xi summit and came with strings favourable to Beijing.
India has begun to move. The government’s India Semiconductor Mission has pledged billions in incentives to seed a domestic ecosystem. Micron is setting up a memory facility in Gujarat. Tata has entered fabrication with serious intent. Global majors are investing, and domestic start-ups are experimenting with chip design and AI hardware.
Our Global Capability Centers are another strength. Once back offices, they have become nodes of innovation. This is no longer the India of routine coding. Yet the paradox remains: the patents flow outward. India gains salaries, not sovereignty.
We live in a polarised world. Operation Sindoor was a reminder that wars today are fought not only with missiles and tanks but also with chips, satellites, and networks. During the operation, Pakistan received real-time satellite intelligence and air defence support from China. China used the conflict as a live laboratory to test its systems.
India’s own DRDO systems and indigenous loitering munitions performed impressively, even outmatching Chinese hardware in some respects. But the episode highlighted what is at stake: control of Core ICT in defence. Persistent surveillance, real-time intelligence fusion, resilient communications, and secure semiconductors are now strategic essentials.
China has woven Core ICT into the fabric of its military power, integrating satellites, AI, and electronic warfare into doctrine. India still imports most of its chips, radars, and sensors. A country aspiring to great-power status cannot outsource the nervous system of its military. Wars will increasingly hinge on who sees first, decides fastest, and disrupts best.
Consider another lesson — this time from Wall Street. Oracle stunned markets when Larry Ellison revealed that its pipeline of AI-related contracts had exploded to $455 billion from $138 billion just three months earlier. The company’s shares surged 36% in a day, briefly making Ellison the world’s richest man. Ellison, who once dismissed cloud computing as “gibberish”, had pivoted late but decisively.
The message for India is stark. Ambition matters. Scale matters. Timing matters. Oracle may be taking risks, but it has dared to bet at the scale of hundreds of billions. India’s semiconductor incentives, by comparison, are measured in billions of dollars — important, but modest.
But there is also a cautionary parable here. Ellison’s dependence on one client illustrates strategic vulnerability. Oracle’s future is hostage to OpenAI’s fortunes. India must learn the opposite lesson: to reduce dependency, to diversify and, above all, to own.
India already wields formidable soft power. Our democracy, diaspora, and digital public goods — Aadhaar, UPI, CoWIN, ONDC — are admired worldwide. The next step is to convert that soft power into smart power: influence grounded in ownership of technology. That is the vision worthy of a nation aiming to be developed by 2047.
Dr Arogyaswami Paulraj, the globally renowned pioneering scientist and engineer whose groundbreaking invention of MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) wireless technology revolutionised wireless communication, has proposed a Core ICT Commission. Modelled on ISRO and the Atomic Energy Commission, it would be chaired by the prime minister, staffed with global experts, and designed to think in decades, not quarters.
Its mission: align India’s IT talent, GCC strength, and semiconductor initiatives into one coherent strategy. It would cut across silos, blend capital with R&D, and make India a builder, not just a buyer.
The Commission would need teeth. Here India can learn from China’s SAMR. A Core ICT Regulator, housed within the Commission, could review major GCC expansions, encourage co-development of IP with Indian firms and universities, and tie access to India’s billion-person digital market to commitments on capacity building.
Handled wisely, this would not deter investment. It would anchor it. Global companies know they need India. The real question is whether India will use that leverage.
Our IT giants, flush with cash, return billions to shareholders through buybacks. Our GCCs, brilliant as they are, remain tethered to foreign IP chains. Our government has begun to act — the IndiaSemiconductor Mission, the Micron and Tata projects, the defence satellite push — but we must go further. Each such initiative is a live ember. But too often, they glow in silos. They must ignite the blaze of an industry.
What creates critical velocity is mission architecture. South Korea vaulted into semiconductor leadership because the State stitched universities, firms, and financiers into one fabric, with procurement and subsidies aligned to long-term goals. Australia’s quantum strategy follows the same playbook. India must do likewise.
That means aggregating demand across defence, railways, and digital infrastructure so that Indian-made ICT products have guaranteed buyers at scale. It means circulating talent across silos — researchers rotating into industry, industry engineers spending time in labs — so that ideas flow and not just stay captive. It means designing public-private funds that can invest with patience, absorbing the risk of decade-long R&D cycles.
India must now declare Core ICT a strategic industry. That means sustained investment, long-term protection of intellectual property, deep R&D funding, and a whole-of-government approach to building resilience in chips, networks, and secure digital infrastructure. It means treating digital sovereignty with the same seriousness we once gave to the atomic energy programme and to space.
What India needs is nothing less than a Manhattan Project for Core ICT — a national mission that mobilises our finest engineers, harnesses our global diaspora, attracts capital on an unprecedented scale, and welds together civilian and military applications. This is not about catching up; it is about a great leap, defining the standards, and shaping the rules of the digital age.
The scale of our ambition must breach the highest ramparts of the digital universe. If India wants to be a developed nation by 2047, we must also become the architects of our own technological destiny.
There is no room for delay. The US decision to impose a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas is another warning shot. The message is unmistakable: access to foreign markets and talent pipelines can be throttled overnight. If that path narrows, the case for building at home becomes overwhelming. The value of domestic innovation, procurement, and ownership of Core ICT is no longer abstract; it is the only way to secure growth, jobs, and sovereignty in a world where rules are written elsewhere. This moment should not paralyse us. It should accelerate India’s own Manhattan Project
for Core ICT.
Nirupama Rao is a former Foreign Secretary and Ambassador of India. She is a member of the Council and the Court of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. Views are personal