Time for yet another new era

The New Computer Policy of 1984 officially ushered in the Computer Age in India even though computing was present in some form or the other before that. The Liberalization of 1991 supersized that and helped all businesses in general. In 1995-96 came the public Internet. The Y2K crisis of 1999 led to the Indian IT Services Revolution. The then NASSCOM President Dewang Mehta (who tragically died before he turned 40 in 2001), grandly declared that every Indian needed: Roti, Kapda, Makaan, Bijli aur Bandwidth.

Well, we first had the rise of broadband, the proliferation of the smartphone and the mobile broadband revolution all in the new millennium. But nothing beats the changes that have taken place due to the Covid crisis and that has transformed every industry. It has introduced technology into every business equation. While India was caught on the backfoot in 2020, we have come back in 2021 and the outlook looks good in 2022 and beyond.

India can make this new era its own if it embraces the following…

Cloud: While the number of global hyperscale data centers crossed 500 some time back, India used to lag in that, but now has planned dozens of new ones in the coming years. If data is the new oil, then it is very important to store this data oil in your geographic location.

Industry 4.0: Small industries in India were reeling during the pandemic, but an upgrade to Industry 4.0 will level the playing field and it won’t matter where in the world or which corner of India you are in. Or how small you are.

Artificial Intelligence: This is the one tech that binds them all and develops them all. It is important to introduce it in every business, field, and government department. Most important will be to do so in the educational curriculum.

Hypercomputing: The data explosion, rise of AI and speed at which we are operating means that without high computing power we won’t achieve much. Quantum Computing is paramount.

Smart Governance: While the industry always does its jobs, the concept of e-governance has given way to Smart Governance. Government departments, its decisions along with public utilities all must go “smart”.

R&D: A real lagging area. A strong Research & Development is a blank cheque for the future. India’s research scene is abysmal. We are nowhere in the top list of global patents. Forget US and China, many smaller countries are ahead of us in this regard.

The West’s days of high growth are numbered. China’s credibility has been hit by Covid crisis. It has an ageing population and erratic domestic consumption growth. It is time for the rest of Asia and Africa to rise.