The time is ripe for India to grow and gain chip, AI, cloud and knowledge sovereignty, the sooner the better.
The shift in geopolitical and economic trends triggered by major economies of the world is forcing developing and underdeveloped countries to become self-reliant on one hand and, on the other, providing plenty of opportunities to think beyond the obvious and to think differently in ways that can sustain such erratic pressure and prejudice.
For a long-term strategy to become a fully self-reliant nation, we must compete “from chip to cloud, from semiconductors to software, from infrastructure to intelligence.”
This involves developing and building capabilities in potential areas right from fundamental electronics and processors that power every device (chip/semiconductors) to smartphones, laptops, IoT, defence equipment and networking hardware (hardware and devices).
It extends to hyperscale data centres, secure sovereign cloud and edge computing (platforms and cloud) to control over AI models, DPI and data governance (data and AI) to homegrown core applications in healthcare, agriculture, education, governance and transportation (applications and ecosystems).
Our ability to design, train, deploy and govern AI models without dependency on external platforms would enable us to achieve AI sovereignty.
This requires building fundamental models trained on local languages and contexts, securing sovereign data pipelines for training, ensuring algorithm transparency and explainability, and creating an AI talent and research ecosystem.
To achieve knowledge sovereignty, we must have control and custodianship of our knowledge assets, addressing how data is collected, processed, contextualised and transformed into intelligence.
We must also ensure that national archives, research, patient and cultural knowledge are not locked into foreign systems. Citizens’ data must be governed under domestic data protection law, and decision systems, knowledge graphs and governance tools must reflect local priorities and ethics, not outsourced values.
I believe that although US actions pose challenges, they also create an opening for India to strengthen its global competitiveness, regain talent, deepen its manufacturing and technological capacities, and diversify both markets and supply chains.
Some of the strategic actions India can adopt to maximise the upside and mitigate risks ahead include: building infrastructure and improving ease of doing business, enhancing and upgrading the domestic innovation ecosystem, encouraging and promoting GCC/offshoring, positioning India as a hub for remote work, R&D and offshore delivery, diversifying trade partnerships and markets, and promoting brain-gain policies by creating a favourable framework for the Indian diaspora to invest, along with providing government sector-specific support.
I firmly believe that the four-layer strategic framework for self-reliance should include chip, cloud, AI and knowledge sovereignty.
The author is President Technology & Innovation BLS International. Views are personal.
