Technology policy is arguably too esoteric to figure in India’s election discourse this season. But the next government in Delhi will have its hands full in dealing with the impact of the rapidly unfolding technological changes on the major economies, the geopolitical rivalry between them, and the global governance of artificial intelligence, space industrialisation, and the bioeconomy. Above all, the next government will have to focus on a wide range of internal reforms to make India ready to gain command over emerging technologies.
The rest of the world is not waiting. Consider the massive new campaign in China on mastering the “new productive forces”. The Chinese Communist Party’s new campaign is quite central to Beijing’s current ambition to overtake Washington in the production of advanced science and technology and rise to the top of the global power hierarchy. The notion of productive forces — or technological means of production — and how they drive social and political transformations is central to classical communist theory.
President Xi launched the current usage of the term last September during a visit to China’s old industrial heartland in the northeast of the country. The location chosen for the speech was about turning the north-eastern rust belt into a shining tech belt. Since then, the term has acquired a near-mystical quality and has found its way into the canon of “Xi Jinping Thought”.
In a work report presented in March to the National People’s Council, Prime Minister Li Qiang promised a “new leap forward” by supporting advanced technology sectors, including electric vehicles, new materials, commercial spaceflight, quantum technology and life sciences.
The idea that China should move from the labour-intensive production of the last century to a more technology-intensive economy has been around for a while. President Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, talked about the importance of “scientific development”, stressing the importance of technology and innovation in moving to a higher stage of development and the building of a “harmonious society”.
As Xi stokes up China’s nationalism and seeks to reduce reliance on foreign technologies, full control over the new productive forces has become a major strategic objective for Beijing. China has made impressive advances under Xi and has acquired dominance over some sectors like solar panels and battery storage. It also lags well behind the US in several other areas including semiconductor production and the innovations in generative AI.
The West is investing big
The new obsession with technology policy is not limited to China; the question of mastering the technological revolution animates all major economies. In the last few years, President Joe Biden has focused intensely on regaining its leadership in the advanced technology sectors.
The Biden administration successfully mobilised bipartisan support in the US Congress to pass three pieces of legislation — the Infrastructure Investment Act, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. Together, they form a muscular industrial policy — long taboo in the US economic discourse — aimed at renewing American leadership in advanced technologies.
It has also sought to limit the support of US capital to Chinese technological development and restrict advanced technology exports from the US and its allies to Beijing. The US is also trying to develop new global technology coalitions with its friends and partners, including the Quadrilateral forum with Australia, India, and Japan, and the so-called Chip-4 alliance between the US and three leading semiconductor producers — Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. It is also building deep bilateral partnerships in critical and emerging technologies with India (the iCET).
In a major speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris last week, French President Emmanuel Macron talked of the urgent need for Europe to reclaim a major spot in the distribution of global technological power. Calling for strengthening of Europe’s “industrial and technological sovereignty” and closing the gap with the US and China that are boosting their technological sectors with massive subsidies, Macron demanded big investments in AI, quantum computing, space, biotechnology, and such new energy technologies as green hydrogen and nuclear fusion.
The task for India – beyond manifestos
In India, science and technology have long been a major part of its developmental strategy. Over the last decade, we have seen Prime Minister Narendra Modi leverage digital technologies for the delivery of services, emphasise investments in renewable energy, focus on a mission mode to put India back on the map of semiconductor production, and develop a strategy for the acceleration of India’s AI capabilities. Technology has also figured prominently in the Modi government’s foreign policy — especially in making it a key element of building strategic partnerships with the US and Europe.
The BJP election manifesto has a section on technology and innovation that promises, among other things, to make India a leading space power, promote a robust national research and development (R&D) infrastructure, set up a research fund, and launch a new mission for quantum computing.
To keep pace with the new global race for mastery over the “new productive forces”, though, Delhi needs to undertake a sweeping overhaul of its technology departments, significantly raise the national expenditure on R&D, and encourage greater participation of the private sector in the research, development, and production of modern technologies.
The entrenched S&T monopolies under the government created in the early years after Independence are out of sync with the imperatives of building a large technology-driven economy that India now aims for. Modernising the technological foundation of the Indian economy and national security must necessarily be at the top of the agenda for the next government if Delhi wants to be a part of the global map of “new and high-quality forces of production”.
The writer is a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express and a visiting professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore
