India’s tech dream no longer distant, says Vaishnaw
India’s ambition to become a global technology powerhouse is no longer a distant dream, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday, as he held up a palm-sized semiconductor wafer — a homegrown chip model he believes could disrupt the world’s leading manufacturers.
Addressing a summit here, Vaishnaw said India’s digital revolution is being driven by advances in areas such as digital credit, lightning-fast mobile data and large language models. He called it the “next wave of India’s growth story”, powered by indigenous innovation.
The minister stressed that protecting the country’s digital assets must go hand in hand with its technological rise. “Data is the new oil, and data centres are the new refineries. We must ensure that data remains within India’s borders and that our own talent gets the opportunities it deserves,” Vaishnaw said.
Showcasing India’s progress in chip design, he said the country is now developing 2-nanometre chips, among the smallest and most complex in the world. “Nearly 20 per cent of global design engineers are Indian. Earlier, chips of 5 or 7 nanometres were considered advanced. Now, 2-nanometre chips are being designed right here in India,” he noted.
Holding up the wafer, Vaishnaw described semiconductor fabrication as an act of immense precision. “Building a chip is like creating an entire city on a slice of silicon, complete with plumbing, power and networks. A chip is 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, and even a five-minute power failure can cause losses of $200 million,” he said.
Vaishnaw added that India is using some of the world’s most sophisticated tools to make chips, while also developing indigenous capabilities to reduce reliance on imports. “Our goal is clear — to place India at the centre of the global semiconductor ecosystem,” he said.
India