India’s preparedness to own technologies should be an urgent strategic priority. Fundamentally, it is about control over critical technologies. Recent geopolitical conflicts have exposed how critical the control over technology has become. Incidents across regions, from operations involving political leaders to targeted surveillance and attacks, underscore the reality that technology is being actively weaponised.
Today’s wars are digitised. Whether it is the use of communications in conflicts or the reported deployment of advanced artificial intelligence tools in strategic operations, technology is being used for battlefield power. In Iran’s case, surveillance systems reportedly tracked movements of vehicles through telecom towers and CCTV networks.
Technology, therefore, is a double-edged sword. It empowers, but also exposes. The more dependent a country is on external systems, the greater its vulnerability. Today, global digital monopolies dominate the landscape, wielding influence across borders. The United States controls software ecosystems, while China dominates hardware. Between these two poles, most countries, including India, remain dependent.
Our digital backbone, including cloud infrastructure, search engines, social media platforms, semiconductors, and servers, is largely controlled by foreign players. Apart from our success in building Digital Public Infrastructure, we own very little of the core technology stack. In a world where technology is increasingly used as a geopolitical tool, such dependence poses strategic risks.
From cloud services to messaging platforms, much of India’s data resides with global vendors. On the hardware side, dependence on imports, particularly from China, remains significant. This creates a situation where India is effectively squeezed between two technology superpowers, both of whom have demonstrated a willingness to use technology and supply chains as instruments of influence.
The risks are real. If a Chinese chip is embedded in an Indian product, the data could flow back to China. Consider what happened with Huawei in the US. Russian Indian joint ventures have also faced sanctions. Western sanctions cut off access to its software. Employees suddenly found themselves without basic tools like email. Now imagine such disruptions across Indian corporate and government departments, our navigation systems, shipping, defence, energy systems, and stock exchanges, that rely heavily on global platforms. The consequences could be severe.
India has historically followed an open approach, allowing global technology firms to scale rapidly within its ecosystem. While this has accelerated digital adoption, it has also deepened dependence. The recent weaponisation of platforms, from financial systems like SWIFT, following the Ukraine invasion, where major Russian financial institutions were disconnected from the SWIFT messaging system, a critical conduit intended to disrupt Russia’s international trade and financial transactions, to enterprise software, has triggered global concern. Digital infrastructure is the battleground now, and only a few nations have the capacity to defend themselves effectively.
Equally concerning is data colonisation. When countries rely on foreign platforms for critical services, they risk losing control over their own data. Under certain legal frameworks, data stored on global cloud platforms may be accessible to foreign governments. This raises questions about sovereignty and security.
Satellite systems, navigation platforms, and communication networks can thus be controlled or disrupted. Reliance on external systems like GPS carries risks, including the possibility of denial or manipulation. India’s experience in recent operations like Operation Sindoor has shown the value of indigenous systems such as NavIC.
Drones have been used extensively in the US, Israel, Iran war. While India has made progress in building a domestic drone ecosystem, many critical components, including chips, operating systems, and control systems, are imported. If these components are compromised, defence weakens.
The next frontier of risk lies in quantum computing. Today’s encryption systems, such as RSA, rely on mathematical problems that are difficult for classical computers to solve. However, quantum computers have the potential to break these systems much faster. What was once thought to be a distant possibility, Quantum Day, when current encryption becomes obsolete, now appears much closer, possibly within the next few years.
Technological self-reliance means moving beyond assembling imported components to designing and owning key technologies. This lesson China learnt long ago, creating the Chinese Firewall. They ensured that the data of Chinese citizens and businesses remains in China, accessed only by Chinese companies. China only allows use of Chinese IT products in government offices. In 2022, France renamed its Finance Ministry as Ministry of Economics, Finance, and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty. All IT products in the government now have to be French. Germany has replaced Windows with Linux in government offices.
As the battleground shifts from land and resources to data, algorithms, and digital infrastructure, India cannot afford to be a passive participant in this transformation. It must act decisively to secure its technological future. In a world where technology is increasingly weaponised, sovereignty is not just about borders, it is about control over the systems that power the nation.
Dr. Ajai Chowdhry is Chairman, EPIC Foundation and MGB (Mission Governing Board), National Quantum Mission
