Developing countries like India face dual challenges in the technology domain: supply chain warfare and supply chain security concerns.
When Israel mounted a sophisticated supply chain attack in Lebanon by exploding pagers and the US proposed banning connected car technologies linked with China, both in the month of September 2024, there was a shift in how supply chains are conceptualised and operationalised. What used to be defined by efficiency (just in time) and resilience (just in case), were now shifting towards security (just to be secure). Developing countries, while worried about supply chain attacks, lacked the capacity to secure their tech supply chains.
Compounding the worries of developing countries, supply chain warfare was parallelly building up between the US and China. In its quest to maintain its lead in AI, the US introduced a framework for controlling the diffusion of AI. While it did target China (placed in tier 3), it placed most of the developing world including India into tier 2 (involving quotas and authorisations). Though Trump has recently withdrawn the diffusion framework, that may have more to do with undoing anything Biden and the opposition from industry as opposed to any concern for developing countries.
From AI to semiconductors to telecom, the supply chain warfare is only heating up with negative repercussions for developing countries who are caught in the cross-fire.
What should developing countries do to confront the dual challenges?
Target what is at the root of both — proprietary tech.
In this talk, I would present a solution to the dual challenges that Pranay Kotasthane and I have come up with: creation of an Open Technology Maitri which is essentially “a multistakeholder initiative for realising the vision of techno-strategic autonomy by advancing legal and policy pathways for open tech deployment and uptake in developing countries.”
I foresee following takeaways for the attendees of the proposed talk:
First, gaining a deeper understanding about developments in global tech geopolitics.
Second, understanding how the shift in supply chains is unfolding — from efficiency to resilience to security.
Third, understanding the dynamics of US-China tech competition and how it impacts the developing world, including India.
Fourth, appreciating why promotion of open technologies (open-source software, open hardware, open protocols, open datasets, etc) through an Open Tech Maitri helps advance the tech interests of developing countries like India in the contemporary geopolitical environment.