The Global Power Shift India’s Rise in AI & Semiconductors
20 Feb 2026 18:00h - 19:00h
The Global Power Shift India’s Rise in AI & Semiconductors
Summary
The panel examined how AI has shifted from a niche technology to a catalyst for economic transformation, emphasizing that genuine AI leadership demands the integration of silicon, software, systems and policy [21-34]. Jaya highlighted India’s strong engineering talent, silicon-design capabilities and rapidly growing ecosystem of system and infrastructure partners, while stressing that collaboration across nations and organisations is essential [37-42]. She framed the discussion around three strategic questions: building the intellectual foundation, deepening manufacturing and supply-chain resilience, and establishing a credible sovereign AI capability [45-48].
Vivek noted that India’s AI Mission, backed by over ₹10,000 crore, tax holidays for data-centers and platforms like AI Coach, is creating credibility through large-scale deployments and the gradual development of domestic IP in AI and semiconductors [50-57]. He added that the country’s robust VLSI design ecosystem must evolve from relying on foreign IP to owning its own, a key step toward a trustworthy deep-tech sector [56-57]. Rahul observed that domestic demand for AI-enabled products is surging and that both government programmes (e.g., a ₹1 lakh crore AI fund) and private capital exceeding $100 billion are beginning to flow into data-center and manufacturing projects, though the breadth of investment remains uneven [66-79].
Thomas argued that India should move from merely seeking compute capacity to building sovereign capability, leveraging its unique data-residency needs and a large pool of startups to develop home-grown IP and niche supply-chain components such as co-packaged optics [89-104]. He suggested that India does not need to produce leading-edge 2 nm chips but can add value in adjacent technologies and AI-infrastructure deployment, positioning itself as a resilient partner in global supply chains [101-108]. On policy, Thomas advocated public-private partnerships like the U.S. “Genesis” model, where government de-risks large-scale research while avoiding direct subsidies, to align funding with grand-challenge problems and accelerate innovation [116-128][216-226].
Vivek stressed the need for strategic autonomy-clearly defining which technologies to indigenize and which to keep open-to balance national security with global collaboration [142-148]. He also pointed to expanding skilling programmes such as NASCOM’s Future Skill Prime and a shift from rote learning to creative problem-solving, arguing that massive reskilling is required to prepare the next generation for AI-driven jobs [178-188]. Rahul described India’s manufacturing path as a “vertical-stack” model where firms integrate design, fabrication and system integration, encouraging experimentation across many domains despite limited resources [153-164]. Thomas concluded that sustainability must be embedded in product design, noting AMD’s commitment to flattening the energy curve while acknowledging the need for humility and continuous correction [278-285].
The moderator wrapped up by stating that momentum alone is insufficient; coordinated sequencing, disciplined capital, institutional alignment and infrastructure depth are essential for India to realise its AI and semiconductor ambitions [198-202][255-262]. Overall, the discussion underscored that India’s AI and semiconductor future hinges on collaborative public-private effort, strategic focus on sovereign capabilities, robust talent development and sustainable execution [21-34].
Keypoints
Major discussion points
– AI leadership requires a holistic, cross-disciplinary approach – true AI dominance can only be achieved when silicon, software, systems and policy are aligned; no single element is sufficient and broad collaboration is essential. [21-34]
– Credibility in deep-tech hinges on large-scale, systematic investment and a balanced policy framework – India’s AI mission, data-center tax holidays, and semiconductor design strengths must be scaled up, while policy must protect strategic autonomy yet remain open to global collaboration. [50-59][131-148]
– Building manufacturing depth and supply-chain resilience calls for sustained capital and focused niche capabilities – rather than trying to match the most advanced fabs, India should target areas such as optics, co-package interconnects and packaging, leveraging public-private risk-sharing to grow a robust ecosystem. [66-80][92-110][216-236]
– Talent development and skilling are critical for the next-generation AI/semiconductor workforce – education must move from rote memorisation to AI-augmented, creative problem-solving, supported by programmes like Future Skill Prime and extensive startup incubators. [178-188][255-259]
– Public-private partnership models (e.g., the U.S. “Genesis” project) offer a template for India – government can de-risk strategic initiatives, fund grand-challenge research, and align academia, national labs and industry without directly subsidising private ventures. [116-128][225-230]
Overall purpose / goal of the discussion
The panel was convened to assess India’s current position and future roadmap in artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies, identify the strategic gaps (intellectual foundation, manufacturing depth, sovereign capability), and propose coordinated actions across policy, industry, academia and capital markets that will enable India to become a credible, self-reliant AI power by the 2030 horizon.
Tone of the discussion
The conversation began with an enthusiastic, forward-looking tone, emphasizing the transformative potential of AI and India’s “poised” status ([21-34]). As the dialogue progressed, speakers adopted a more analytical and realistic tone, acknowledging existing shortcomings (limited IP, capital constraints, supply-chain fragility) and the need for disciplined execution ([50-59], [66-80], [92-110]). Toward the end, the tone shifted to a constructive, solution-oriented stance, highlighting concrete programmes, public-private partnership models, and a call to action for talent and policy makers, ending on an optimistic, motivational note about the nation’s collective journey ([178-188], [255-259]).
Speakers
– Rahul Garg
– Role/Title: Founder and CEO of Moglix (Mr.)
– Areas of Expertise: Industrial supply-chain platforms, manufacturing, industrial finance, AI infrastructure scaling
– Jaya Jagadish
– Role/Title: Session Moderator; veteran semiconductor industry executive with three decades of design-engineering experience (Jaya Jagadish)
– Areas of Expertise: Semiconductors, AI leadership, technology strategy
– Thomas Zacharia
– Role/Title: Senior Vice President for Strategic Technical Partnerships and Public Policy, AMD, Inc.; former director at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Dr. Thomas Zakaria)
– Areas of Expertise: Exascale supercomputing, AI systems, semiconductor policy, public-private partnerships
– Vivek Kumar Singh
– Role/Title: Professor and Senior Advisor on Science and Technology, NITI Aayog (Professor Vivek Kumar Singh)
– Areas of Expertise: National science & technology policy, AI strategy, semiconductor ecosystem, biomanufacturing, innovation governance
– Moderator
– Role/Title: Session Moderator (Moderator)
– Areas of Expertise: Session facilitation
Additional speakers:
– Pooja – mentioned briefly as someone who could also join the closing remarks; no specific role or expertise identified.
– Subhash Suresh – referenced as former president of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering; expertise in engineering leadership and grand challenges.
– Ray Kurzweil – quoted regarding longevity and AI; known as futurist and inventor, expertise in AI, futurism, and health technologies.
– Medi CEO – referenced in discussion about Indian startups; name not provided, role is Chief Executive Officer of “Medi”.
– Vivek Murthy – appears as a transcription error; likely refers to Vivek Kumar Singh already listed.
External source citations:
Rahul Garg – [S1]
Jaya Jagadish – [S3]
The moderator opened the session with a brief overview of today’s computing stack-CPUs, GPUs, SoCs and AI engines-that underpins modern systems, and introduced the three panelists: Dr Thomas Zakaria, AMD; Prof. Vivek Kumar Singh, Senior Advisor, NITI Aayog; and Mr Rahul Garg, founder-CEO of Moglix [1-15]. After welcoming the audience, the moderator announced the start of the discussion [16-17].
Jaya Jagadish set the thematic tone, observing that artificial intelligence has moved from a niche technology to a catalyst reshaping entire economies [21-25]. She argued that genuine AI leadership requires synchronising silicon, software, systems and policy-“no one aspect can really get us there” [32-34]. Emphasising India’s readiness, she highlighted the country’s engineering talent, strong silicon-design base and a rapidly expanding ecosystem of system-level partners and manufacturers [37-39]. She then framed the panel’s inquiry around three strategic pillars: building the intellectual foundation, deepening manufacturing and supply-chain resilience, and establishing a credible sovereign AI capability [45-48].
Talent development – Prof. Vivek Kumar Singh highlighted the shift from rote, memory-based learning to AI-augmented, creative problem-solving. He cited the availability of free generative-AI tools, the NASCOM Future Skill Prime platform and widespread university incubators that make this “the best time to be a student” [178-188].
When asked how the next generation should be prepared for the AI-driven future, Jaya directed the question to Prof. Singh [170-172].
Manufacturing and capital – Mr Garg shifted the focus to post-COVID supply-chain shocks that have heightened political will to localise production, noting the government’s ₹1 lakh crore AI fund and private-sector commitments exceeding $100 billion for data-centres and related infrastructure [66-73]. He acknowledged that capital remains unevenly distributed but affirmed that investment is already flowing and that demand for AI-enabled products is rising sharply across the country [70-78]. He cautioned that the ability to execute at the required speed and scale still needs to be proven [79-80].
Strategic focus for manufacturing – When asked where India should concentrate its manufacturing efforts, Dr Zakaria argued that the country should move from merely seeking compute capacity to building sovereign capability [89-92]. He distinguished “sovereignty” (keeping data and applications within India) from “resilience” (developing indigenous IP and participating in the global supply chain without necessarily mastering the most advanced 2 nm nodes) [93-103]. Zakaria identified niche, high-value segments such as co-packaged optics and AI-infrastructure interconnects as realistic entry points, noting that these components are not widely available globally and that India could “stab the jib” in these areas [104-108].
He advocated public-private partnerships (PPPs) modelled on the U.S. “Genesis” program, explaining that the public sector should provide policy direction and demand signals while de-risking large-scale research through collaborative frameworks that fund compute infrastructure, software stacks and “lighthouse” problems, without directly subsidising private ventures [116-124][216-226]. He cited U.S. programs such as Genesis and highlighted China’s 20-year HPC-to-AI trajectory as examples of how coordinated national compute initiatives can seed long-term AI leadership [119-124][123-125].
Zakaria also pointed to AMD’s Helios project, an open-standard platform that could enable Indian firms to become leading providers of specific components, illustrating how open-standard ecosystems can create a competitive edge [210-212].
Policy perspective – Prof. Singh added a complementary view, urging a “strategic autonomy” approach: clearly delineating which technologies must be indigenised for national security and which can remain open to global collaboration [141-148]. He stressed that such a framework would protect critical components while still benefiting from international knowledge exchange.
Private-sector model – Mr Garg described the Indian private-sector approach as a “vertical-stack” model, where firms integrate design, fabrication and system integration while simultaneously developing ancillary ecosystems such as clean-room facilities, chemical suppliers and packaging verification [153-164]. He argued that experimenting across many domains-“throwing darts at hundreds of problems”-will eventually reveal the few areas where India can achieve first-mover advantage, even if the nation is currently “late to the party” in semiconductor technology [153-154][165-166].
Closing remarks – The moderator stressed that momentum alone will not secure India’s AI and semiconductor ambitions; disciplined sequencing, capital allocation, institutional alignment and deep infrastructure are essential [198-202]. He also raised the question of embedding sustainability as a core design choice rather than a trade-off [274-277].
Dr Zakaria responded that AMD designs its products with an explicit goal of flattening the energy curve, acknowledging that sustainability requires humility and continuous course-correction [278-285].
When asked what single move India must execute flawlessly, Rahul Garg emphasized that success will not hinge on a single action but on a fast-follower capability combined with a global-scale ambition. He argued that India must rapidly scale capital (≈ $10-20 bn) through coordinated public-private effort to compete with larger global pools [240-247].
Key agreements (each supported by transcript citations):
– AI leadership demands a holistic ecosystem linking silicon, software, systems and policy [32-34][116-119].
– Substantial public and private financing, preferably through PPP de-risking mechanisms, is critical [56][70-78][216-221][255-262].
– India’s large talent pool provides a fast-follower advantage that must be leveraged via coordinated action [38-39][214-215][239-240].
– Developing indigenous IP and nurturing local startups are essential for sovereign capability [84-86][98-100][56-57].
Points of divergence (with supporting citations):
– Scope of manufacturing: Zakaria advocates focusing on niche supply-chain components such as co-packaged optics [104-108]; Garg argues for building mid-range fabs and a vertically integrated ecosystem that includes clean-room and packaging capabilities [153-164].
– Capital mobilisation: Zakaria suggests government de-risk projects without direct subsidies [216-221]; Garg highlights the need for massive pooled capital (potentially $10-20 bn) that may require more direct state involvement [70-78][214-218].
– Openness vs. strategic autonomy: Singh calls for clear rules on strategic autonomy, delineating indigenisation priorities [141-148]; Zakaria’s Genesis model favours an open, collaborative research environment [225-229].
– Strategic posture: Garg’s fast-follower narrative contrasts with Zakaria’s forward-looking supercomputing mission that seeds long-term capability rather than merely chasing existing technologies [119-124][214-218].
The panel concluded with consensus that India’s AI and semiconductor future hinges on coordinated public-private effort, strategic focus on high-value niche technologies, aggressive talent skilling, and embedding sustainability into design. Unresolved issues include defining the exact roadmap for private-capital mobilisation, specifying timelines for moving from niche participation to more advanced fab capabilities, establishing mechanisms for IP transfer from academia to industry, and creating metrics to monitor sustainability outcomes. Together, these insights outline a roadmap that combines ambitious policy, targeted investment and a skilled workforce to realise India’s AI sovereignty by the 2030 horizon.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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 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
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?
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.
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?
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
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.
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?
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
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?
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 du…
Event“of course see there would be a number of challenges but i think as i mentioned that one doesn’t need to really control every layer of the resources that is there and while foundational resources the …
EventThe speaker stresses the need for collaboration among multiple stakeholders to address AI challenges. No single stakeholder can solve these issues alone, necessitating a united effort.
EventSuccessful collaboration requires openness, compromise, and recognition of diverse community needs rather than imposing single solutions
EventSpecific timeline and investment details for India’s semiconductor manufacturing capabilities (Semicon mission) remain unclear
EventAdditionally, India advocates for providing more opportunities, investments, and technology to countries with greater potential, aligning with the principles of reduced inequalities outlined in SDG 10…
EventIrakli Beridze (UNICRI) This comment introduced the governance perspective into the scientific discussion, emphasizing the need for better science-policy interfaces. It influenced the conversation to…
EventBusinesses are encouraged to look outside the finite Caribbean market Effective collaboration, as demonstrated by the Caribbean Export Development Agency, is spotlighted for its role in advancing bus…
EventTalent development, education and future skills
Event-Massive Workforce Development Challenge: The industry faces a critical shortage of approximately 1 million skilled workers globally in semiconductor manufacturing. The emphasis is on developing broad…
EventThe panel reached consensus on the need for fundamental educational reform to prepare students for an AI-integrated future. Traditional models of knowledge acquisition are becoming obsolete as informa…
EventWhile the introduction of AI technology may result in job losses in certain sectors, it also creates new job opportunities. It is estimated that more jobs will be created than lost in this technology …
EventThe government’s response through the India AI Mission has established a shared compute framework providing access to 38,000 GPUs, with an additional 20,000 announced by the Prime Minister during the …
Event– Governments can completely exit the zero-day market and avoid research dedicated to finding software vulnerabilities. Alternatively, governments may choose to invest heavily in finding and exploiti…
Resource“Dr Thomas Zakaria is Senior Vice President for Strategic Technical Partnerships and Public Policy at AMD.”
The knowledge base lists Dr Thomas Zakaria as Senior Vice President for Strategic Technical Partnerships and Public Policy at AMD, confirming his role [S1].
“Prof. Vivek Kumar Singh said AI‑augmented learning shifts education from rote memorisation to creative problem‑solving.”
Future-Ready Education material describes a shift from regurgitation-based learning to critical thinking and creativity, supporting Singh’s description of the transition to AI-augmented, creative problem-solving [S79].
The panel shows strong convergence on four major themes: (1) the need for a coordinated, holistic AI ecosystem; (2) the importance of sizable public and private financing through PPP mechanisms; (3) leveraging India’s deep talent pool as a fast‑follower advantage; and (4) building indigenous IP and startup ecosystems for sovereign capability. Additional nuanced agreements appear on niche supply‑chain focus and the emerging emphasis on sustainability.
High consensus across speakers on strategic direction and required enablers, suggesting a unified policy and industry roadmap is feasible. The alignment reinforces the urgency of implementing integrated funding, talent development, and IP strategies to achieve AI and semiconductor leadership.
The panel displayed broad consensus on the importance of talent, coordinated ecosystems, and public‑private collaboration, but diverged sharply on strategic focus (niche vs vertical integration), the mechanism for capital mobilisation (de‑risking PPP versus large pooled funding), the balance between strategic autonomy and open collaboration, and whether India should pursue a fast‑follower catch‑up path or a longer‑term capability‑building route.
Moderate to high – while the participants share common goals (AI leadership, sustainability, talent development), their prescriptions differ substantially, indicating that policy design will need to reconcile competing priorities and reconcile fast‑follower ambitions with strategic, niche‑focused investments.
The discussion was shaped by a series of pivotal remarks that moved it from a broad, aspirational overview to a focused, actionable roadmap. Jaya’s integrative framing set the stage, while Thomas’s emphasis on niche technological strengths and forward‑looking supercomputing strategy redirected attention to realistic competitive edges. Vivek’s call for strategic autonomy and Thomas’s Genesis partnership model provided concrete policy pathways, and Rahul’s insight on fast‑following coupled with the need for massive public‑private capital highlighted the financing challenge. Finally, the sustainability comment broadened the agenda to include environmental stewardship. Together, these comments created turning points that deepened analysis, introduced new topics, and aligned the panel around specific, implementable ideas.
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.
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