DRDO: without chip self-reliance by 2047, India risks failing in future conflicts

The news

Bengaluru/New Delhi, 14 October. At Tuesday’s curtain-raiser to the “Semiconductors and Next-Gen Chips” session of the Emerging Science, Technology and Innovation Conclave (ESTIC), DRDO Director General B K Das and lab heads warned that unless India can design, make and deploy its own semiconductors by 2047, it risks “failing in future conflicts” driven by AI, cyber and space power. Their figures: India produces 20 per cent of the data used for global AI but hosts 3 per cent of AI data centres; it has 20 per cent of the world’s chip-design workforce, yet 90 per cent of its chip industry depends on imports. Dr Anesh Sharma, Director, Solid State Physics Laboratory, said India has “no expertise in fabrication or materials or products”; the goal: 2-nanometre chips, at least two foundries in the global top ten, and independence “from the materials itself”. Early-IP domains: quantum computing, photonic circuits, neuromorphic computing.