Establishing a strategic focus on diversifying global technology innovation away from established powers will provide India with the greatest opportunities to grow in global relevance, says Chris Miller, author of the global bestseller Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology and professor of international history at Tufts University in the US, in an interview with Mint.
Talking about India's potential to be part of a global semiconductor supply chain largely ruled by Taiwan and the US, Miller said the one key strategy policymakers should adopt would be to strategically target incentives to fill gaps in the global supply chain. than to project 'self-sufficiency' as a geopolitical and technological strategy.
“We need to be very careful with the politicized term 'self-sufficiency' in semiconductors and electronics; there is no country in the world that is self-sufficient. Even China, which bills itself as self-sufficient, is not; it relies on different parts of the world for tools, chemicals and more,” Miller said.
Room for India to make money
Miller highlighted this, further underscoring China's foreign self-interest strategy as “aggressive and belligerent” – but also calling it one that would create space for India to take advantage of it.
“Diversifying global technology supply chains around China-related threats and risks is the way forward. For India, which is trying to play a bigger role, it is important to be focused and specific about which parts of the tech supply chain make sense to be built in India. So diversification is the right public policy approach to really shape what can be achieved,” he said.
The professor was in India earlier this week as a speaker at a chip design conference in Bengaluru. Speaking to Mint on the sidelines, Miller emphasized that India is making strides to emerge as a key participant in the global technology ecosystem in the future. Two such examples, he said, can be seen in US semiconductor companies setting up chip design offices in Bengaluru, and in the “rapidly emerging smartphone supply chain” in Tamil Nadu.
All this gives India plenty of room to become a key stakeholder of the global semiconductor and electronics ecosystems, Miller said. “Is there room for India in the global semiconductor supply chain? Certainly. To leverage this successfully, India will have to be strategic and choose which segment to focus on. It should also have a well-mapped explanation as to why India would be best suited to compete in a particular segment.”
While underscoring the growth potential of the global semiconductor industry in the second half of this decade, Miller further added that a global geopolitical shift leading to a new order for the semiconductor ecosystem will be where India stands to benefit.
“It is important to note that chip production is only one part. Additionally, most of the value actually lies in the chip design side of the supply chain. To take advantage of this, Indian policymakers need to think holistically about the entire supply chain and recognize that manufacturing is just one part of it – there are other parts, such as design, where India is already more competitive, and leverage this accordingly,” he said.
New contributor
In October, market researcher and consultant Gartner predicted that global semiconductor sales would grow 14% annually to $717 billion. This figure is expected to easily cross the $1 trillion mark by 2030. India is making a new contribution in this area, but will likely provide revenues by 2030. In September, Mint reported that the Union government is set to roll out a new set of $15 billion stimulus measures to boost the domestic semiconductor supply chain. . The latter follows on from 2021's $10 billion chip incentives, which led to domestic industrial conglomerate subsidiary Tata Electronics building an $11 billion chip manufacturing plant, or factory, in Gujarat.
The factory has identified late 2026 as a tentative timeline for first production.
India also accounts for a quarter of the world's chip design engineers, attracting investment from US chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Applied Materials, Lam Research and more. However, a design-based incentive program has yet to be introduced.
Last month, Mint also reported on a $3 billion electronics stimulus program being planned by the IT ministry to boost domestic electronics research and component manufacturing.
Miller underlined that these initiatives are likely to gain further momentum from a wave of politicization in the chip industry.
“The new wave of politicization of the technology industry began about a decade ago, when China carved out a larger share for itself in the global technology industry through a series of aggressive non-market practices. It became worse when it was accompanied by a more assertive and belligerent foreign policy that alienated its major trading partners. It is worrying, but unlikely to change – the political factors are now deeply entrenched. It is necessary for governments to design foreign policies in accordance with this,” he said.
Right goal
Miller also added that India is right not to focus on the top of the semiconductor value chain and instead concentrate on building the accessible parts of the industry.
“If countries like China, the US or South Korea, with more advanced semiconductor ecosystems than India, cannot match Taiwan, India is likely to find it even more difficult. This is not because of India, but because of Taiwan's extraordinary capabilities. Every economy, including Taiwan, has started building the semiconductor ecosystem from the bottom up. Building from the top in this industry doesn't work. The right balance of incentives is crucial, and India's incentives are already working based on the development of the electronics supply chain in Tamil Nadu,” he said.
Miller further emphasized the importance of strategic stimulus measures, similar to India's ongoing programme, adding that multi-industry stimulation must be seen together, and not individually, to reap its benefits.
“The biggest example is the production of the Apple iPhone in China. When they started, their domestic sales were only 0.7%. Today, this figure has risen to 20%, which is a huge jump. This was possible because the entire industrial supply chain developed together, and not in one subset,” he said.
American dominance continues
However, in the global development scheme, Miller still expects the US to maintain its dominant position – although he foresees ample opportunities for new 'big tech' corporate powers that will replace the current market leaders of Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and others. the wave of artificial intelligence.
“The EU plays no role in the development of AI today. Japan, another key leader, is underperforming relative to its GDP when it comes to its role in advanced technologies. Taiwan is already far outperforming in terms of its impact on AI. China, meanwhile, is doing its utmost to compete, but doing so from a position of relative weakness. It occupies a difficult position in global geopolitics, namely taking on all major economies at the same time. India is a rapidly growing challenger in this regard,” he said.
“Taking all this into account, it is likely that the US will remain the most influential player in global technology by a wide margin at least through 2030. The influences of China and India are likely to increase, while those of the EU and Japan may decrease.”
Amid these shifts, Miller said the current year in the Internet economy at the turn of the millennium should be the equivalent of 1995.
“Alphabet and Meta deeply fear being replaced in such a future, just as Yahoo and Nokia disappeared. This is why they spend a lot of their own money to innovate in AI themselves. It is entirely plausible that new technological superpowers will emerge, as the way we search for information today is likely to change in the coming years. When that change happens, Google may not be the top company doing that,” he added.