The ‘Top N’ syndrome seems to bite our Indian universities so hard that the annual (p)ranking results of the twin-towers of global ranking are ceremoniously celebrated and needlessly overhyped. Be that as it may, it is time to also take a quick and sweeping glance on more important toppers in the current emerging tech-space to stitch a policy story that’s real and not deceiving. A little peep into some past before that.
When the Tatas wanted to manufacture its own car, an American consultancy firm advised it to stay away from manufacturing. The visionary Ratan Tata went ahead to deliver India’s first fully indigenously developed and manufactured passenger car in 1997 (50 years after Independence). When Tatas wanted to make steel during the British regime, they were humiliatingly dismissed but later went ahead to buy Britain’s CORUS Steel in 2007 (60 years after Independence). In 2017 (70 years after independence), the house of Tatas put in place a chairperson with actionable agenda and energetic pursuit. Similar success stories in India from Tata Group and other conglomerates saw a corporate India that was running on its own. The danger, however, lies in either expecting too much from them or they are blinded by limited success limiting their potential.
The stentorian chorus on the need to indigenise strategic national assets has never been louder before and cannot afford be unheard now. Prime Minister Modi’s Viksit Bharat 2047 is chiselled on the contours of technological sovereignty which forms the key undercurrent for economic and military strength. The proof of the pudding was in the appetising taste during Operation Sindoor. Today, nations that control digital platforms, artificial intelligence, semiconductor technologies, and data ecosystems are shaping the geo-strategic landscape. The trio-riot of NVIDIA, Alphabet, and Apple/Microsoft are capable of tilting commerce, trade, culture, politics, etc. at the drop of a hat. India requires policy statesmanship and aggressive reforms to build such success stories of innovative toppers. Leadership for India in the future is not her maiden race for the present but a second coming of her first leadership position in the past. Lessons from past have demonstrated India’s resilience against global headwinds. Each success story had a customised script, creative director, passionate actors, and nationalist audience. This creator-contributor-consumer trio paved pathways for prosperity during adversity.
The race for AI supremacy is not a sprint but a marathon of sorts. The top three firms based on market-cap, NVIDIA, Apple and Alphabet with Microsoft, TSMC and Meta not far behind influencing AI outcomes and firms like Anthropic, Perplexity and Deepseek changing AI goalpost, the Indian response cannot be surface wipers but deep drillers that address various dimensions of building a sovereign AI ecosystem. It is laughable to ask why TCS or Infosys are not building India’s sovereign AI model akin to asking why IRCTC is not building its own bullet trains. Tata Electronics’ chip manufacturing facility to address the semiconductor requirement is not an isolated effort but a coherent synergy of technology partners. Though we do not have an Indian parallel for Meta or Alphabet, we can certainly push India’s sovereign AI story from its current to new elevated levels using a problem solving approach. The problem of sovereign AI has four fundamental questions to be answered—Compute and Physical Infrastructure, Data and Model Localisation, Capital and Financial Systems, and Talent and Governance. Do we have answers to all?
The common thread that connects all the four questions is the right rationing of the three Cs pointed out earlier—consume, contribute, and create across all the four dimensions embedded seamlessly in academia and industry. It requires massive consumption at consumerist-citizen level, value-added contribution at university and industry level, and strategic creation of an higher order at industry level. The dual blow of restricting natural intelligence entering American territory through tight immigration laws and artificial intelligence leaving American territory (FABLE 5 and MYTHOS 5) through US Federal directive has provided a golden opportunity for academia to partner with industry in a manner unprecedented.
The Silicon Valley or the Chip Revolution or the AI leadership did not emerge from centrally prescribed curricula or through standardised teaching templates. They flourished at the intersection of industry and academia that enjoyed the freedom to consume, contribute and (co)create. As we approach 80 years of Indian Independence (shathabhishekam), is Indian academia fully free? The NEP 2020 ideal should pull all strings and galvanise politically independent India to academically free India. In short: India at Eighty Needs a Mighty Academia. Is anybody hearing?
vaidhya@sastra.edu
