The Global Power Shift India’s Rise in AI & Semiconductors

20 Feb 2026 18:00h - 19:00h

Session at a glance

Summary

This panel discussion focused on India’s strategic positioning in artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies, examining the country’s potential to achieve leadership in these critical sectors. The session was moderated by Jaya Jagadish, a semiconductor industry veteran, and featured Dr. Thomas Zakaria from AMD, Professor Vivek Kumar Singh from NITI Aayog, and Rahul Garg, CEO of Moglix.

The panelists emphasized that true AI leadership requires alignment across four key pillars: silicon, software, systems, and policy. India was positioned as well-suited for this technological shift due to its engineering talent, growing silicon design capabilities, and expanding manufacturing ecosystem. However, the discussion highlighted that momentum alone is insufficient—success requires strategic sequencing, capital discipline, and institutional alignment.

Dr. Zakaria stressed the importance of moving “from compute to capability,” suggesting India focus on sovereignty in data and applications while building supply chain resilience in specialized areas like co-packaged optics rather than competing directly in leading-edge chip manufacturing. Professor Singh outlined India’s systematic approach through initiatives like the India AI Mission and emphasized the need for strategic autonomy—indigenizing critical components while maintaining global collaboration in other areas.

Rahul Garg discussed the private sector’s readiness, noting increased capital flow and manufacturing appetite post-COVID, though he acknowledged the need for public-private partnerships to compete at global scale. The panel addressed talent development challenges, with Singh highlighting how AI tools are transforming education from memory-based to creative, solution-oriented learning.

The discussion concluded that India’s opportunity in AI and semiconductors is real but time-bound, requiring decisive execution and bold strategic decisions to avoid future regrets. Sustainability was identified as a core design principle rather than a trade-off, essential for responsible technological advancement.

Keypoints

Major Discussion Points:

– Building India’s AI and Semiconductor Ecosystem: The panel discussed India’s positioning in the global AI and semiconductor landscape, emphasizing the need for alignment across silicon, software, systems, and policy to achieve true AI leadership. India’s strengths include engineering talent, silicon design capabilities, and a growing manufacturing ecosystem.

– Strategic Focus Areas for Near-term Value Creation: Rather than competing directly in advanced fabs (2nm technology), India should focus on contributing to the AI infrastructure supply chain through areas like co-package optics, interconnect technologies, and other critical components where supply chains are not yet established globally.

– Public-Private Partnership Models and Capital Requirements: The discussion highlighted the need for substantial capital investment (hundreds of billions of dollars) and strategic public-private partnerships to compete globally. Examples from the US Genesis Project were cited as models for de-risking innovation through government investment in shared infrastructure and research.

– Talent Development and Educational Transformation: The panel addressed how to prepare the next generation for an AI-driven future, emphasizing the shift from memory-based learning to creative problem-solving, the abundance of learning resources available today, and the need for continuous reskilling even for experienced professionals.

– Balancing National Security with Global Collaboration: The conversation explored India’s challenge of maintaining its traditional culture of open knowledge sharing while developing strategic autonomy in critical technologies, requiring clear rules about what to indigenize versus what to keep open for international collaboration.

Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to examine India’s strategic opportunities and challenges in AI and semiconductors, focusing on how to build credible sovereign capabilities while leveraging global partnerships. The panel sought to provide actionable insights on policy, investment, talent development, and strategic positioning for India’s technology leadership ambitions.

Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained an optimistic and forward-looking tone throughout, with speakers expressing confidence in India’s potential while acknowledging realistic challenges. The tone was collaborative and constructive, with panelists building on each other’s insights. There was a sense of urgency about seizing the current moment, balanced with pragmatic advice about focusing on achievable goals. The conversation remained professional and encouraging, particularly when addressing students in the audience about the opportunities available to them in this technological transformation.

Speakers

Speakers from the provided list:

– Moderator: Role not specified in detail, appears to be the session moderator who introduced the panelists and managed the discussion format

– Jaya Jagadish: Session moderator with three decades of experience in semiconductor industry doing design engineering, expertise in compute evolution from single threaded processors to massively parallel AI systems

– Thomas Zacharia (Dr. Thomas Zakaria): Senior Vice President for Strategic Technical Partnerships and Public Policy at AMD, Inc.; previously led Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he oversaw deployment of multiple world-leading supercomputing systems including Frontier (the first exascale supercomputer); expertise in scientific discovery, national compute infrastructure, public policy, and global partnerships

– Vivek Kumar Singh (Professor): Senior advisor on science and technology at NITI Aayog; plays central role in shaping India’s science, technology and innovation architecture; background in computer science, data analytics and academic leadership; expertise in R&D governance, university industry collaboration, and state level innovation ecosystems

– Rahul Garg: Founder and CEO of Moglix; built one of India’s leading industrial supply chain platforms, expanded into manufacturing and industrial finance; expertise in scale, capital and execution in India’s industrial ecosystem

Additional speakers:

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

Full session report

This comprehensive panel discussion examined India’s strategic positioning in artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies, exploring the country’s potential to achieve global leadership in these transformational sectors. The session brought together diverse expertise from policy, industry, and technology leadership to address critical questions about India’s technological sovereignty and competitive positioning.

Panel Overview and Strategic Framework

The discussion was framed around India’s opportunity in AI and semiconductors, with the moderator establishing that AI represents perhaps the most transformational technology of our lifetimes. The session featured Jaya Jagadish, a veteran semiconductor industry executive with three decades of experience in semiconductor design engineering; Dr. Thomas Zakaria from AMD; Professor Vivek Kumar Singh from NITI Aayog; and Rahul Garg, founder and CEO of Moglix.

Jaya Jagadish emphasised that true AI leadership requires systematic alignment across four fundamental pillars: silicon, software, systems, and policy. She noted from her experience conducting panels within AMD that this transformational power has created a global contest for AI leadership, with every nation seeking self-reliance and competitive advantage.

Distinguishing Compute from Capability

Dr. Thomas Zakaria provided crucial strategic clarity by distinguishing between “compute” and “capability,” arguing that India’s opportunity lies in moving beyond mere computational infrastructure to building strategic capabilities that create lasting value. He further refined the discussion by separating sovereignty from resilience—two concepts that are often conflated but require different approaches.

Sovereignty involves ensuring that data and applications remain resident within the country and relevant to national contexts, while resilience focuses on supply chain independence and strategic positioning in global technology networks. Zakaria noted that AMD employs 10,000 people in India and expressed interest in identifying the top 50 startups among India’s 50,000 for potential partnerships.

India’s Policy Framework and Strategic Initiatives

Professor Vivek Kumar Singh outlined India’s systematic approach through initiatives like the India AI Mission, which allocates 10,000 plus crores for five years through seven comprehensive pillars addressing all aspects of AI development. He emphasised that India has already demonstrated its capability to create digital public infrastructure at population scale, earning global recognition as an IT superpower.

Singh identified a critical gap: whilst India excels at knowledge creation through its universities and R&D institutions, the country needs to improve its ability to convert this knowledge into marketable products with socioeconomic impact. He highlighted government initiatives including tax holidays for data centers and the AI Coach platform, as well as NASSCOM’s Future Skills Prime programme that provides aggregated access to online courses.

Manufacturing Transformation and Capital Mobilisation

Rahul Garg provided insights into India’s manufacturing transformation, particularly in the post-COVID environment. He observed that the pandemic fundamentally shifted perspectives on supply chain resilience when India lacked sufficient capacity for critical items like masks and oxygen concentrators during the crisis, highlighting the importance of domestic manufacturing capability.

Garg noted significant capital mobilisation, with private sector commitments of $100 billion within the week for data centres and localisation efforts. However, he raised critical questions about execution capabilities, acknowledging that whilst capital is flowing, the ability to execute at the required speed and scale remains uncertain.

The discussion revealed that Indian companies have naturally evolved toward vertical integration, building complete technology stacks from design through manufacturing to end products, unlike Western markets that typically develop through horizontal specialisation.

Talent Development and Educational Evolution

The panellists addressed fundamental changes in how knowledge is acquired and applied in the AI era. Singh emphasised that students today have unprecedented access to learning resources, making this “the best time to be a student.” He highlighted India’s advantages including the third-largest startup ecosystem globally and extensive support systems for skill development.

However, Jaya Jagadish noted from her work leading a future skills committee that massive reskilling efforts are needed, not just for new graduates but for experienced professionals. She mentioned that even her batchmates with 25 years in Silicon Valley feel threatened by technological change, illustrating the widespread nature of this challenge.

Balancing Security and Openness

Vivek Singh acknowledged that balancing national security concerns with global collaboration represents a fundamental shift for India, which has traditionally embraced knowledge as a common good. He introduced the concept of “strategic autonomy”—maintaining independence where critical national interests are at stake whilst remaining open to collaboration in non-sensitive areas.

This balance is particularly challenging in AI and semiconductors, where technologies often have dual-use applications and supply chains are globally integrated. The discussion suggested that India needs sophisticated frameworks for assessing which components require domestic control versus international collaboration.

Sustainability Considerations

An important dimension addressed sustainability as a fundamental design principle. Thomas Zakaria emphasised that leading companies have obligations to minimise environmental impact through efficient design, though he acknowledged the complexity of sustainability challenges where solutions to 21st-century problems often address issues created by 20th-century approaches.

An audience member who teaches AI and sustainability at IIM reinforced this theme, advocating for sustainability to be integrated into every design decision rather than treated as a trade-off.

Strategic Recommendations and Opportunities

The panel concluded with specific recommendations for India’s path forward. Thomas Zakaria suggested that India should focus on contributing to supply chains for leading-edge AI infrastructure deployment rather than attempting to compete directly in cutting-edge chip manufacturing. He specifically mentioned opportunities in co-packaged optics and interconnect technologies, where global supply chains are not yet established.

Rahul Garg emphasised the need to scale ambition beyond the domestic market, arguing that whilst India has become excellent at fast-following global trends (citing rapid ChatGPT adoption as an example), true leadership requires competing at global scale. This necessitates unprecedented coordination between public and private capital.

Vivek Singh stressed the importance of converting India’s strong research capabilities into practical products with socioeconomic impact, requiring cultural transformation within academic and research institutions to embrace commercialisation alongside traditional knowledge creation.

Future Challenges and Considerations

The discussion highlighted that India’s opportunity in AI and semiconductors is real but time-bound. Success requires strategic sequencing, capital discipline, institutional alignment, and infrastructure depth working in coordination. The panel’s insights suggest that India possesses fundamental ingredients for leadership—engineering talent, growing design capabilities, expanding manufacturing ecosystem, and policy commitment—but converting these advantages into global competitive position requires unprecedented coordination and sustained investment at massive scale.

The session concluded with Jaya Jagadish noting the engaging discussion and presenting mementos to the panellists, reinforcing that whilst challenges are significant, India’s opportunity to achieve meaningful leadership in AI and semiconductors remains achievable through systematic execution of well-coordinated strategies.

Session transcript

Moderator

Thank you. Thank you. across CPUs, GPUs, SoCs, and AI engines that power cutting -edge compute systems worldwide. She brings a rare combination of deep silicon expertise, global product leadership, and national ecosystem engagement. She is deeply committed to talent development in the ecosystem as well. Please join me in welcoming Jaya, who will be moderating our session. Our first panelist is Dr. Thomas Zakaria, Senior Vice President for Strategic Technical Partnerships and Public Policy at AMD, Inc. Dr. Zakaria previously led Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he oversaw the deployment of multiple world -leading supercomputing systems, including Frontier, the first exascale supercomputer. His career spans scientific discovery, national compute infrastructure, public policy, and global partnerships. Please welcome Dr. Thomas Zakaria.

Joining us is Professor Vivek Kumar Singh, Senior… advisor on science and technology at NITI IO. Professor Singh plays a central role in shaping India’s science, technology and innovation architecture. From R &D governance to university industry collaboration and state level innovation ecosystems. With a background in computer science, data analytics and experience in academic leadership at leading institutions, he bridges research depth with national policy execution. Please welcome Professor Vivek Kumar Singh. My apologies. And finally, we have Mr. Rahul Garg, founder and CEO of Moglix. Rahul has built one of India’s leading industrial supply chain platforms and has expanded into manufacturing and industrial finance, navigating the realities of scale, capital and execution in India’s industrial ecosystem. Please welcome Mr. Rahul Garg.

We will now be beginning the discussion. Thank you so much for joining us.

Jaya Jagadish

All right. Good afternoon, everyone. And I would like to extend a very warm welcome to each one of you for this session. And thank you for taking time to be here with us. So we are meeting at a moment when AI is no longer a niche technology. And these conversations have become foundational. And there is a shift in shaping the entire economies. And that’s the global impact that this technology can have. And having spent about three decades in semiconductor industry doing design engineering, I have seen compute evolve. From a single threaded processor to massively parallel AI systems. And that’s. stupendous growth that we have seen and a transformation of technology. And honestly, AI is a technology that is probably the most transformational that we will be able to see in our lifetimes.

And true AI leadership is something globally there’s a contest. Every country wants to achieve self -reliance and, you know, leadership in AI. And that’s the importance of this technology that we are talking. But true AI leadership itself happens when silicon, software, systems, and policy, all of these aspects have to come together to achieve that leadership. No one aspect can really get us there. And that’s what truly excites me for today’s session. We have experts who have the knowledge. In each of these, many of these aspects, and we will be, you know, asking questions and they’ll be sharing their perspectives on this, which I’m sure all of us will enjoy listening to. So coming to India, from what I see, India is truly well poised for this technology shift.

And we bring together engineering talent, silicon design strength, and a growing ecosystem of system and infrastructure partners, including manufacturing. But what truly defines and makes this moment different is the scale and the speed at which we are moving. So we do see a strong commitment, but what is also important is collaboration. No one country or one organization can truly achieve the results or be successful at this, but we all need to collaborate. We all need to become very aware because this is not a simple thing. It has the potential to touch human lives and humanity. At a time when we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation where we are in a situation through this panel, today I want to look at three perspectives.

First, how do we continue to build the intellectual foundation? Second, how do we build manufacturing depth and supply chain resilience through a sustained investment model? And third, how do we build a credible, sovereign AI capability? I will get to Vivek. I’ll

Vivek Kumar Singh

Thank you, Jaya. This is a very important thing, very important question. I think India has already taken a call to go in a big way in the whole deep tech domain. And a lot of changes that we see happening in terms of AI compute, then AI data centers and so on. Recently, we all heard about the tax holidays for data centers that are going to be created in India. Also, platforms like AI Coach, because that’s very, very important. If you want to create AI applications for India, you need AI data, which is centered in India, which is for the context of India. So what I believe, when you talk about credibility and how credible we are into this deep tech domain, comprising AI, semiconductor, biomanufacturing, even other, areas what is very very important is that credibility doesn’t come only from announcements so what we what we really need to know and what we really need to do is to go at a scale and fortunately a lot of positive changes are already happening we have india ai mission we all know about that 10 000 plus crores for five years and it’s a very systematic effort where we have almost all so all seven pillars address you know all kind of needs that we need for ai and similarly if you look at semiconductors we we all know about what is happening in fabs also you know we know that india has a very strong ecosystem of uh you know vlsi design semiconductor design and so on unfortunately most of that ip is not with india but you know there’s a time when is also going to happen that india would also be owning a lot of ip so credibility i think uh for india would be very very important and this is coming not only as part of announcement but it’s it’s coming you know it’s coming it’s coming it’s coming it’s coming it’s coming it’s coming it’s coming you know as part of commitment for scaled deployments, for scaled growth, accelerated growth.

And what we see now is something, you know, which nobody could have thought of 10 years back or 5 years back. So we, I believe we are on the track and we are very much into, you know, into the whole realm of AI and semiconductors. And a lot of push is there and the whole ecosystem is evolving and we all, as we move further, we all are going to work towards, you know, creating a very, very credible ecosystem for overall growth of the sector.

Jaya Jagadish

Now, great insights. Thank you, Vivek. Now, moving to Rahul. There’s clearly a growing momentum to strengthen manufacturing in India. Given your journey, you have expanded Moglex from digital marketplaces into manufacturing and industrial financing. Do you believe the Indian private sector is truly ready financially and have the mind? set to take on long term investments that are needed?

Rahul Garg

So firstly, thank you for having me. I think the question is very pertinent because again, pre -COVID there was a very different environment, both from a geopolitics perspective, supply chain perspective. And I think the supply chain as a word started to become popular in COVID times. So and I think I take some pride in the fact that at least as Moglex, we have been part of seeing the supply chain journey in the country as well as continuing to now see the manufacturing journey. On the specific point that you raised on both from a will perspective, capital perspective, demand perspective, if you look at these three aspects of it. So I think the demand in the country clearly is growing rapidly.

And one of the changes that has happened, obviously India becoming the larger in terms of GDP size, consumer demand, people expecting faster and faster products, people want variety. products so on so forth so i think demand discretionary spend is increasing the one significant change that has happened post covid we see is that while the demand is growing there is also an increasing uh appetite for people to start building more and more manufacturing to also start to look at many of those being localized rather than just depend on global supply chains because obviously we have gone through moments where like we may not have enough mask capacity in the country we may not have enough oxygen concentrated capacity in the country and we some of those shocks kind of uh got both the private and the public sector realizing that there is a bare minimum manufacturing that needs to happen in the country for it to be truly self reliant at the population scale that we are in so i think that will has gotten generated the capital is starting to flow in i think the question on whether the capital is large enough and long term enough i think we are seeing increase increasing trend that there are clearly government will whether it is in terms of the fund that we have seen of 1 lakh crore, now 1 .2 billion dollar for specific AI deep tech, things like that.

But also private capital, which within this week, the numbers that I’m hearing is more than 100 billion dollar plus commitment from the private capital companies saying that they are going to invest into data centers, localizing, so on, so forth. So I think the capital is happening today. Is it happening broad -based? The answer may be no. No. But has it started to happen? And has it started to go from like maybe few hundred crores to few billions of dollars? So that is happening. Can we execute at the same speed and scale? Only time will tell.

Jaya Jagadish

Sure. No, there’s definitely an increased momentum. But along with manufacturing, I mean, I’m also biased more towards the design front based on my experience. I do definitely want to see lot more local startups. And Vivek just mentioned, we don’t have the IPOs. I mean, having our own IPs is one of the key steps. we need to take. So moving on, question for Thomas. If advanced fabs remain limited globally, where should India focus on in the near future? Where can we realistically create value in the next three to seven years?

Thomas Zacharia

Thank you, Jaya, and I just want to echo the sentiments that my colleagues here on the panel have mentioned, so I’ll build on that. So I think the opportunity for India is to move from compute to capability, right? I mean, that’s really where we need to be. And I’ll pick a couple of areas. So sovereignty and resilience gets intermingled. So I’m going to sort of keep those two things separate. Sovereignty is one where you are really trying to make sure that your data and your application or use cases are resident in country and it’s relevant to country. And that’s an area that is uniquely India to lead because no one else is going to do that.

It has to be done and you already mentioned the opportunity, we were with the CEO of Medi today talking about 50 ,000 startups. I don’t know how to get my head wrapped around 50 ,000 startups so I asked him, can you tell me who the top 50 are so that perhaps a company like AMD can partner with them and try to help them to mature. So that is on the sovereignty side. On the resiliency side the reality is that clearly India needs any sovereign country expects to have resiliency create their own IP and India should have the same aspiration given the scale of ambition and scale of population and here I think while we certainly should have an ambition to go up the development cycle to the leading edge of chip design.

I think there is an opportunity to also look at being part of the supply chain for leading edge deployment. So you don’t necessarily have to be at the two nanometer scale for GPUs or CPUs. There are critical technology in the deployment at scale of AI infrastructure where India can play a role. For instance, we know that the entire ecosystem is going to be driven to optics as interconnect technology, co -package optics. And there are clear supply chain that is not available globally. That is something that is being considered today. And leading candidates obviously today I would say are U.S., Japan, Malaysia. But those are the kind of niche areas where India can stab the jib.

And that is the journey where you are. really contributing to the first -of -a -kind or the nth -of -a -kind leading -edge technology. So that’s the way I would approach it.

Jaya Jagadish

Great insights. Thank you, Thomas. Now, continuing, today AI leadership is ultimately limited not by ambition, but by access to secure scalable computing resources. So, Thomas, continuing with you, you have led exascale class systems and now you’re working on sovereign AI partnerships globally. In the U.S., programs such as Genesys and broader national compute initiatives have attempted to systematically align infrastructure, research, and industrial capacity. So what lessons from these models are actually applicable to India?

Thomas Zacharia

So I think this is a great area for public -private partnership, in my view. The public part of it is a uniquely government function. Government brings both policy as well as the demand signal, particularly in the area of science and innovation, critical infrastructure, whether it is energy sector or national security, as well as uniquely government missions. And the opportunity here is to, I mean, India has supercomputing mission. I think there is an opportunity, and I think India is already thinking about deploying this national supercomputing mission and national scientific infrastructure that is on a trajectory to be at global leading scale. So today, countries like U.S. China. China is a particularly interesting example. China developed the intellectual ecosystem around HPC, which then translated to AI, over a period of 20 to 25 years.

It was intentional. And if you look at where the AI penetration, AI adoption, AI infrastructure resides globally, you can directly trace that to investments in sort of supercomputing mission that built the underlying infrastructure. So I think that is a great opportunity. Already plans are there. But it’s not a static view. So one of the things that I would encourage as we plan for the future is not plan based on where things are, but plan on where things will be by the time we deploy this kind of infrastructure.

Jaya Jagadish

That’s great. A future -looking planning is what we… Thank you, Thomas. Vivek, moving to you, from a policy standpoint, how do we balance national security concerns with openness and global collaboration?

Vivek Kumar Singh

Vivek Murthy Well, it’s a very tricky question, I would say. You know, for a country like India, we all know, you know, I mean, the kind of culture that we have in India is we have always believed in the fact that knowledge is a common good. And that is how, you know, our whole innovation ecosystem has been operating. Our universities have been creating a lot of knowledge and we all, you know, researchers, R &D persons, they have been trained with the fact that whatever you create should be for a, you know, for a common good. There were never efforts to productize them, to convert them into socioeconomic goods, to, you know, protect them with, you know, excess rights and so on.

So that was the common thing that we have been doing earlier. But what is happening now is that we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in a way that is, you know, we are not doing it in is a completely different word.

And that is where our academia, our R &D institutions are also being asked to, you know, change the complete quotes. So it’s not only that researchers, you know, faculty members in universities, they should end up with research publication, that’s all. So it’s very, very important that you productize also. Now what is happening, see, if you talk about the culture of innovation and how you see in terms of the global world that we are in, particularly for sectors like AI and semiconductor, I think what we need to do is we need to go for a, you know, a strategic decision -making in the sense that what is it that we want to do? So, for example, there are certain sectors where, you know, the setup that we are using has certain components which may be used in some critical deployment.

So in those cases, what we need is a set of clarity of rules. What is it that we would like to indigenize? What is it? that we would like to have built on our own? And what is it that we can keep open for rest of the world, for collaboration and so on? So I think what we need is, I would say two words would be important is strategic autonomy. Autonomy in the sense that autonomy where it is needed, but at all other places where we can collaborate with the world, where we can contribute in terms of collective knowledge creation, India can always play a role and India is playing a role

Jaya Jagadish

Great. Rahul, question to you. As AI infrastructure scales, demand patterns for chips and hardware will shift. How should Indian manufacturers position themselves early? And secondly, where are the first mover advantages?

Rahul Garg

I think. we are kind of late to the party in some sense in the semiconductor and chips some say it’s two decades three decades late to the party right so and then there are couple of countries which have a disproportionate advantage not just in terms of what is more popularly known as the 2nm and two three companies dominating that but also in terms of the entire ecosystem that is required around all of those factories and chipsets and systems so on so forth so I think for us I think the India journey will be its own unique path so that’s one thing that I’ve always at least over the last 20 years I’ve seen that if you were to wait for landline to become 10 % of the population we would have not had the mobile revolution if you had to wait for credit cards then I mean like it would not have happened right so I think the in this new era that we are living I think the manufacturers will have to find few spots which may not be as obvious which given the conventional way the countries and ecosystems are built and I think one of the good advantages of events like this is you start to have a very large population and smart and talented people throw darts at hundreds of problems simultaneously and maybe five years later we will say like okay we knew that these are the three things which will work or all of that kind of thing right but I don’t think there is like a today unique path I mean definitely does seem that we need to start building capabilities and capabilities need to be built design we have capabilities we don’t have the productize capability so that is one capability which needs to be built the manufacturing capability while we are starting with some of the fabs which are in the mid zone but the entire ecosystem of chemical suppliers like clean room suppliers utility suppliers.

How do you make sure that. there is enough packaging verification and many of that ecosystem getting developed. So all of those are going to happen simultaneously. So I think the opportunity remains in all of the areas. And I think therefore, at least my encouragement to even my management and the way we are looking at Moglex and so on and so forth is, I mean, you try 10 things. Do not be scared to try one thing or two things and then you fail. And conventionally also while in the Western and so world, there have been horizontal capabilities companies have built and scaled. In India, historically over the last 15 years, every startup, every large company has built vertical stacks of companies.

So they are doing an integrated. They may be chip designed to manufacture, to systems, to product. I mean, like that’s how just the model has evolved so far. So. I think that’s what vertical stack manufacturing all. parts of the ecosystem will have to give a shot and maybe over time will become horizontal.

Jaya Jagadish

That’s great. Thank you. So, you know, I do see quite a few students in the audience. So one thing that we are now facing is kind of with this technology. What is knowledge? How do we acquire knowledge? I mean, traditionally, we go to schools, universities for that. But today it’s at your fingertips. And with that advancement of AI, it’s just going to get better. You want to learn about something, you always have it on your fingertips. So what really do we need? How do we prepare the next generations to solve the problems of the future is the question. I mean, we cannot just stick around with our traditional ways of learning. And we have to scale and adapt to the newer ways.

So question for you, Vivek, how can we prepare ourselves and equip ourselves for this next phase that’s coming?

Vivek Kumar Singh

well I would say efforts have already started so that’s the best thing and as you rightly said this is the best time to be a student you know if you take yourselves 20 years back you will always be constrained with resources the best that you have is lot of books you will have to go to a library there are books that you can’t afford and so on and books are also not on time so you have later editions and so on so what is happening now is you know with lot and lot of information information which is which is you know can be customized for you specifically then you have lot of recommended systems you have retrieval augmented generation systems you know all of this with generative and what is happening so the best part is that you have plenty of information you want to learn anything you want to acquire a skill you always have resources and most of the time these resources you really don’t have to pay for that because this lot of material that you can access for for free.

The programs, particularly for India, we have something called NASCOM’s Future Skill Prime, where you can, you know, which is an aggregator for a lot of online courses. Similarly, there are platforms across the world that you can use. Now, what is happening is that essentially what we have been doing in our universities and generic colleges and, you know, other institutions earlier is that it was largely a kind of memory -based learning where we were acquiring knowledge, we were memorizing things. But now, over a period of time, it’s a more synthetic perspective which is being, you know, percolated across institutions. So, students now are going more into that creative aspect where they’re able to create solutions for certain problems.

And with the whole ecosystem around startups, we all know India is the third largest startup ecosystem of the world. With a lot of support system that we have, most of our universities have incubators. You know, other support systems. So, this is… best time and that is why I said this is the best time to be a student if you want to do anything if you have a creative idea you always find support and there are lot of skilling programs from government of India from many other organizations many you know philanthropic supports are there so even lot of organizations which have their own products they are you know offering free of cost training to students so this is very good but what is important is largely also due to the fact that you know we keep on hearing that AI is going to cause a number of you know disruption in terms of jobs that are there because lot of jobs which were there in areas like software testing and customer support and all of that is gone but at the same time these technologies are also creating new jobs and for that you need to prepare yourself and fortunately the best part is that we have enough material enough resources enough support system that we can use to create a new job and for that you need to prepare yourself for the new kind of jobs that are going to come so this The whole revolution that we see in front of us will require massive skilling, a bit of reskilling also.

So many of my batchmates, 25 years into the careers, and they now feel that they have to reskill themselves with many, many new things. Life was very good somewhere in Silicon Valley, 25 years, a lot of money, but now they feel threatened. And that is the beauty of startups and all these new ideas that are there. So I would simply end by saying that this is the best time to be

Jaya Jagadish

Absolutely, totally agree. You know, I have to share this thing. I was actually conducting a panel discussion within AMD with the senior execs. And one of the fun questions was, if there is a machine or an equipment that you want to invent, what would it be? And the unanimous answer is, I would love to have a machine that can make me 20 years old. 20 years younger, right? So, you know, you guys are extremely lucky, make use of this opportunity to the maximum. All right. So as we come to the final leg of this discussion, India’s opportunity in AI and semiconductors is very real. But it’s also time bound. Momentum alone will not be enough.

Sequencing, capital discipline, institutional alignment and infrastructure depth truly matters. And all these areas have to work in complete alignment with each other. So, you know, let me close the session by asking each of you one more question. First one is for Rahul.

Moderator

was if there is a machine or an equipment that you want to invent, what would it be? And the unanimous answer is I would love to have a machine that can make me 20 years younger, right? So, you know, you guys are extremely lucky, make use of this opportunity to the maximum. All right. So as we come to the final leg of this discussion, India’s opportunity in AI and semiconductors is very real, but it’s also time bound. Momentum alone will not be enough. Sequencing, capital discipline, institutional alignment and infrastructure depth truly matters. And all these areas have to work in complete alignment with each other. So, you know, let me close the session by asking each of you one more question.

First. First one is for Rahul. In the global race where others are moving fast, what is the one move India must execute flawlessly to stay competitive?

Rahul Garg

I think like many other things I think it’s not one move so maybe we do everything as a Bollywood dance move right so they’re like 10 moves to everything but I think the one of the things which has happened at least from my vantage in the startup ecosystem is over the last 15 years we have become extremely good at being fast followers like maybe 15 years back if there was a product or a service in US or in Europe it would take three to five year lag to come to India and now maybe that lag is like one month 15 days I mean like so probably chat GPT within the first one month the maximum number of users are coming from India right so we have become extreme fast thanks to technology that we are fast followers the number of apps that might be built in India might be higher than most countries combined together maybe US China might be the only ones but otherwise I think India would be in the top three in terms of building all the apps in the world I think the move that needs to happen is the scale of ambition beyond India into the global platform because most of this effort that has happened in last 15 years are around kind of dominating the Indian consumer businesses applications so on so forth I think we need to up the game on global and we would require a significant amount of public private upping the game because most of the countries capital pools that we are fighting cannot be only attracted by the private players so I mean if someone is raising 100 billion dollar 200 billion dollar we need to at least start the race with 10 billion 15 billion 20 billion right which is not possible today completely in the private so I think how do we bring this and push the you capital bar, global bar together as a government and as private players I think that’s one thing I would love to see

Moderator

That’s a very valid statement Right Next question to Thomas Thomas, if we had to place one strategic bet that defines India’s position in AI and semiconductors by 2030 what should it be?

Thomas Zacharia

So I’m going to repeat what Rahul said there is, you know, the one I don’t know much about Bollywood dance moves but I would say one move is certainly ambitious I’m going to sort of regress back to a few previous questions since we have a few minutes, I thought I will sort of start with public -private alignment. Rahul mentioned that it is very, very hard for private sector to to to raise the kind of capital that’s being raised elsewhere in India. And that’s part of it is, you know, so one of the important things that government can do is to de -risk that enterprise. Now, I don’t believe that government should de -risk a private sector’s business venture by investing in that effort.

But there are unique places where government can de -risk through public -private partnerships that would enable this ecosystem to develop so that additional ventures can be taken up by private sector on their own. Because I don’t think that my taxpayer money should be used to subsidize. I mean, look, there is a role. So you mentioned Genesis. I did not describe Genesis. I don’t know whether… of you in the audience know what genesis is so I’ll take a couple of minutes to just discuss that as an opportunity to think about how to frame public private partnership so today United States spends a trillion dollars a year in R &D expenditure and roughly about 20 to 25 percent of that is government the rest is private sector now if you look at the R &D spend in the United States it’s been steadily growing at about keeping up with inflation maybe slightly above inflation 2 to 3 percent year over year but if you look at innovation output it’s been flat lined part of it is because the problems are getting more and more complicated discovering new materials cure for cancer all All those things are increasingly, significantly impactful for society, but also significantly challenging.

So the goal of Genesis Project is to really, one, align public and private partnership, two, invest government resources to bring academia, national laboratories, and private sector to identify what they call lighthouse problems, so you can call it grand challenge problems, that are relevant, that is likely to move the needle across these areas. And the government is then investing substantial resources for compute infrastructure, software stack, partnering with private sector in these important problems. Because it is being done in a… open, collaborative framework, private… This work is, in my view, appropriate for government to invest because the government is not investing directly in any particular business, but the business is able to take the fruits of this collaboration to drive innovation in their own sector.

So I think that is a really good model. I think it was already alluded to. If you are a fast follower or if you follow anybody, the danger is that it may be appropriate for a business, but as a nation, anytime you follow somebody, and if that is your ambition, you are destined at best to be number two, at best, because there is always somebody ahead of you. So I think for a country with the history of India, the ambition of India, the talent of India, and now the will of India, there is nothing wrong with aspiring to be, strategically deciding where India can go. can be world leading in part of this, I mean, no country is going to dominate every aspect of this ecosystem, identifying strategically where one can be that leader globally.

And I would say there are, at least if I can speak to AMD, just as an example, we were discussing about Helios and how it is based on open standards. There are many components. It may not be GPU that you start, but there are many components there where a private sector in India can aspire to be a leading provider based on open standards so that a business like AMD or a public private sector would say, well, I can get a better product, better total cost of ownership if I can plug into that. And one last thing, I cannot let you get away with, you know, just this time. I’m being great for the youngsters. Ray Kurzweil said that today, for each of us in this room, we age only eight months for every chronological year because of advances in medical care.

And that is true because longevity, people are living longer because of better drugs, better health, living, etc. So AI has the added advantage of providing greater solutions. So it’s not just the youngsters, there is hope for us if

Moderator

Absolutely. So we are all lucky to be here at this age of AI. We are truly lucky to be in this. No, that was very insightful. Thank you, Thomas. So Vivek, a question for you. I’m going to say what is the one bold decision, but I’m going to change that to what are some of the bold decisions. We must take to ensure we don’t look back and regret five years from today.

Vivek Kumar Singh

well i think uh what the the biggest advantage that india has is of course you know a huge pool of talent so that is something that we all need to rely on that’s that’s uh that’s the most important thing for a country like india and this essentially see india has an inherent culture of innovation so it’s not that you know we’re always following or we’re looking at technologies and so on the fact is the ecosystems where we have been living in they were not you know uh geared up they were not situated in the context that we were creating products so the culture of transforming that innovation to products has not been there unfortunately for a long period of time things are changing now and probably what we need to do is to invest more in our youth to invest more in skilling to invest uh more in how do we convert the knowledge that we generate generate in our universities, in our R &D labs into actual usable products which have, you know, socio -economic impact.

So that’s the most important thing that I believe we should be looking at. Of course, given the fact that we also have an advantage that we have the advantage of scale also. So, you know, a lot of things that we have done and we have proved it in terms of the digital public infra that we have created at a population scale of size India, it matters a lot. If you go to any part of the world, particularly anywhere in Europe, if you identify yourselves from India, you know, and you are in some discussion related to IT and so on, so you will always be regarded with, you know, a lot of depth in the sense that everybody believes that India is an IT superpower largely because of the talent that we have.

So this is something that we should leverage on and we should do it. And something that we really need to invest in heavily to see what is going to come for the next generation and to provide an environment and our prime minister keeps on saying ease of doing business so that is something that we really need to look into to to enable and to create an environment where we are able to transform the knowledge that we create into usable products

Moderator

no absolutely right i mean talent skilling and ease of doing business i mean all of these are coming together for india and in fact i led the committee for future skills and i worked i got the opportunity to work with 13 other eminent leaders from industry academia across the board and one thing that stood out was if we can actually get our skilling right we can actually supply talent not just for india but globally you know that’s something that’s going to be very effective you if we can get our skilling actions right so thank you again Today’s conversation was truly insightful and inspiring. We touched upon many aspects of semiconductors and AI and the ecosystem and India’s potential as such.

And again, AI leadership will not really happen by accident. It will require a deliberate alignment across policy, industry, research, and infrastructure. And we have many strengths that we need to work on. We need to work on strengthening and leveraging for the growth that we are ambitious about. And truly what matters now is decisive execution, moving with clarity and with urgency. So it’s going to be a great journey. And I once again want to iterate that we are truly lucky to be here in this phase. And what a fantastic journey we have ahead of us. And let’s be committed to that journey of learning and advancement. Thank you also. much for attending this session. I appreciate your time.

Thank you. Do we have time for audience questions? We can take one question, one or two. Out of 500 out of 500 sessions here, this is one on semiconductor. I’m very glad that you guys organized it. Very, very insightful. A few amazing questions and a good response. Quickly to my question. I teach AI and sustainability at IIM and I cover the entire supply chain starting from the rear, going through the chip design, manufacturing, the semiconductor supply chain, essentially, and all the way to data centers and electronic use. So, sustainability is at the core of all design decisions in my class. And that’s what we are trying to teach the new management human resources in India.

Your thoughts on having sustainability not as a trade -off but as a core design choice for every decision that is made either in India or some country.

Thomas Zacharia

So it’s a great question and I think every one of us, certainly I can speak for the company that I represent here and I must say I’m in India so I am going to give a shout out to the 10 ,000 AMDers in this country. AMD would not exist without you. We would not be able to do what we are doing without the contributions that they make every day. So India is already very much part of a global supply chain. Sustainability is very key. We design our products with a goal, explicit goal of flattening the energy curve because it’s easy to say we’re going to build megawatts and gigawatts, which we may because it is going to be a fundamental infrastructure in which society is going to progress.

But it’s incumbent on us to ensure that we are very, very thoughtful and committed to sustainability. I also would like to say that we have to be humble enough to know that we are not going to get everything right. I was at a U.S. National Academy meeting where Subhash Suresh, he was the president at the time, we had just rolled out the grand challenges for the 21st century. And he said, you know, if you look at it, the grand challenges of the 21st century. are attempting to solve the problems created by the solutions to the grand challenges of the 20th century. So the reality is that we don’t know what we don’t know. But yet, as long as we use sustainability as a core goal and be humble enough to know that we are not going to get it all right, then I think we cannot stop progress.

We need to continue to move forward. But know that we are not going to get everything right and course correct as we go along.

Moderator

Okay, I’m told we are out of time. Yes, actually we are running out of time. And I really appreciate for joining us for this session. And I’m very much heartfelt thankful to our distinguished guests. So as a token from Mighty’s side, I would like to give a short, I mean cute memento. Pooja, you can also join. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Vivek Kumar Singh

Speech speed

201 words per minute

Speech length

Talent Development, Skilling, and Sustainability

Topics

Capacity development | Artificial intelligence

Jaya Jagadish

Speech speed

141 words per minute

Speech length

Balancing National Security with Openness and Global Collaboration

Topics

Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs | The enabling environment for digital development

Thomas Zacharia

Speech speed

136 words per minute

Speech length

Talent Development, Skilling, and Sustainability

Topics

Environmental impacts | Artificial intelligence

Rahul Garg

Speech speed

172 words per minute

Speech length

Manufacturing Depth, Supply‑Chain Resilience, and Investment

Topics

The enabling environment for digital development | Artificial intelligence

Moderator

Speech speed

97 words per minute

Speech length

981 words

Speech time

602 seconds

Deliberate alignment across policy, industry, research, and infrastructure

Explanation

Effective AI and semiconductor development requires coordinated alignment of policy, industry, research institutions, and infrastructure to create a cohesive ecosystem.

Evidence

“It will require a deliberate alignment across policy, industry, research, and infrastructure.” [17]. “From R &D governance to university industry collaboration and state level innovation ecosystems.” [18].

Major discussion point

Public‑Private Partnerships and National Compute Initiatives

Topics

The enabling environment for digital development | Capacity development

Agreements

Artificial intelligence | The enabling environment for digital development

Environmental impacts | The enabling environment for digital development

Unexpected consensus

– Rahul Garg
– Thomas Zacharia

Arguments

India must increase scale of ambition beyond domestic market to compete globally, requiring significant public-private capital coordination

India needs systematic alignment of infrastructure, research, and industrial capacity with government providing policy and demand signals

Explanation

While both recognize the need for action, Garg emphasizes immediate scaling to match global competitors, while Zacharia advocates for longer-term systematic development citing China’s 20-25 year approach. This difference in timeline perspective was unexpected given both speakers’ industry backgrounds

Topics

The enabling environment for digital development | Financial mechanisms

Overall assessment

Summary

The main disagreements center around strategic approach (direct competition vs strategic positioning), government role (direct investment vs de-risking), and manufacturing strategy (vertical integration vs selective participation). However, there is strong consensus on the need for public-private partnerships, talent development, and India’s potential in AI and semiconductors.

Disagreement level

Moderate disagreement on methods and approaches, but strong alignment on overall goals and India’s potential. The disagreements are constructive and reflect different but complementary perspectives on achieving the same objectives. This suggests healthy debate that could lead to a more comprehensive strategy incorporating elements from all viewpoints.

Partial agreements

Both agree on the need for strategic autonomy and sovereignty in critical areas, but Singh focuses more on policy frameworks for deciding what to indigenize vs collaborate on, while Zacharia emphasizes technical capability building in specific supply chain areas

Speakers

– Vivek Kumar Singh
– Thomas Zacharia

Arguments

Strategic autonomy approach needed – indigenize critical components while maintaining global collaboration in non-sensitive areas

India should move from compute to capability, focusing on sovereignty where data and applications are resident in-country and resilience through supply chain participation

Topics

Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs | The enabling environment for digital development

All speakers agree on the importance of public-private partnerships and increased investment, but they differ on the mechanisms – Garg wants direct capital coordination, Zacharia prefers de-risking approaches, and Singh emphasizes systematic government-led initiatives

Speakers

– Rahul Garg
– Thomas Zacharia
– Vivek Kumar Singh

Arguments

Indian private sector shows growing appetite for localized manufacturing post-COVID, with increasing capital flow from both government and private sources exceeding $100 billion in commitments

Government should de-risk private enterprise through public-private partnerships without directly subsidizing business ventures, similar to the US Genesis Project model

India needs credible sovereign AI capability through scaled deployments and systematic efforts across all seven pillars of the AI mission

Topics

Financial mechanisms | The enabling environment for digital development | Artificial intelligence

Environmental impacts | The enabling environment for digital development

Takeaways

Key takeaways

India must achieve AI leadership through systematic alignment of silicon, software, systems, and policy rather than focusing on individual components

India should transition from being a fast follower to a global leader by moving from compute to capability, focusing on sovereignty and supply chain resilience

Public-private partnerships are essential for scaling investments, with government de-risking enterprises without directly subsidizing private business ventures

India’s talent pool and innovation culture are key competitive advantages that need better conversion from knowledge creation to marketable products

Strategic autonomy approach is needed – indigenizing critical components while maintaining global collaboration in non-sensitive areas

Sustainability must be integrated as a core design principle rather than treated as a trade-off in all AI and semiconductor development

Current technological era provides unprecedented learning opportunities, requiring shift from memory-based to creative problem-solving education

India should focus on niche supply chain areas like co-package optics rather than competing directly in leading-edge chip manufacturing

Resolutions and action items

Leverage India’s 50,000 startup ecosystem by identifying and partnering with top performers for maturation support

Invest heavily in youth skilling and conversion of university/R&D knowledge into usable products with socioeconomic impact

Scale capital coordination between government and private sector to compete globally, targeting $10-20 billion initial investments

Develop vertical integration model where Indian companies build complete stacks from design to manufacturing

Implement strategic decision-making framework to determine what to indigenize versus what to keep open for global collaboration

Focus on building capabilities in emerging areas like optics and interconnect technology for AI infrastructure

Unresolved issues

Specific mechanisms for converting India’s strong VLSI design capabilities into Indian-owned intellectual property

Detailed roadmap for achieving the scale and speed required to compete with established global players

Concrete strategies for balancing national security concerns with openness in global collaboration

Specific identification of which technologies should be indigenized versus kept open for collaboration

Timeline and milestones for transitioning from fast follower to global leader status

Detailed framework for public-private partnership models that effectively de-risk without subsidizing

Suggested compromises

Focus on contributing to supply chain for leading-edge deployment rather than competing in cutting-edge chip design initially

Adopt strategic autonomy approach – maintain sovereignty in critical areas while collaborating globally in non-sensitive domains

Pursue vertical integration model suited to Indian ecosystem rather than traditional horizontal specialization

While seemingly light-hearted, this comment connects AI advancement to human longevity and personal stakes, making the technology discussion more relatable and urgent. It suggests that the AI revolution will benefit current participants, not just future generations.

Impact

This humanized the technical discussion and reinforced the urgency of getting AI strategy right. It connected the abstract policy and technology discussions to personal and societal benefits, adding emotional resonance to the strategic imperatives discussed throughout the session.

Overall assessment

Explanation

This addresses the strategic challenge of finding competitive opportunities in a market where other countries have significant head starts, requiring identification of emerging or underserved segments.

Disclaimer: This is not an official session record. DiploAI generates these resources from audiovisual recordings, and they are presented as-is, including potential errors. Due to logistical challenges, such as discrepancies in audio/video or transcripts, names may be misspelled. We strive for accuracy to the best of our ability.