Commentary
Find our newspaper columns, blogs, and other commentary pieces in this section. Our research focuses on Advanced Biology, High-Tech Geopolitics, Strategic Studies, Indo-Pacific Studies & Economic Policy
Firstpost | Agentic AI: The next frontier in artificial intelligence
By Arindam Goswami
Agentic artificial intelligence follows the natural evolution of AI and a logical technological trajectory. These are new types of systems that can proactively identify problems, create plans, and execute complex tasks across digital environments with minimal human supervision. Regulatory response to these developments has to keep up.
By Arindam Goswami
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Moneycontrol | From Technological Rivalry to Global Governance: The path forward
By Arindam Goswami
The current geopolitical landscape is shaped by technological nationalism, driven by competition in AI and semiconductors. However, game theory and historical examples suggest that this phase will evolve into co-operative frameworks, balancing national interests with global technological cooperation
By Arindam Goswami
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Moneycontrol | Four takeaways from Raisina Dialogue on contemporary geopolitics
By Lokendra Sharma
From Ukraine to information warfare, discussions at the Raisina Dialogue revealed insights about the shifts in contemporary geopolitics that India would do well to adapt to
By Lokendra Sharma
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Firstpost | How Trump’s tariffs can be opportunity in crisis for India
By Arindam Goswami
While Trump’s tariffs aren’t designed to help India, they may inadvertently provide the external catalyst needed for India’s economic transformation. Sometimes, the most valuable gifts come in the most unexpected packages.
The Donald Trump administration’s recent imposition of tariffs on Indian goods could have a silver lining if India can seize the opportunity. In conditions reminiscent of the 1991 crisis that opened up India’s economy, India could use this opportunity for its long-overdue economic transformation by fostering a more export-oriented economy. This is an opportunity to shift the domestic Overton window on protectionism, albeit under pressure.
By Arindam Goswami
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Moneycontrol | Why India should keep out TikTok in the age of information warfare
By Lokendra Sharma
Even as some Chinese apps make their comeback in the country, TikTok should not be allowed in India due to cognitive autonomy concerns. Its algorithm can be potentially used to amplify or de-amplify content to suit ByteDance's, and thereby Chinese Communist Party's, objectives
By Lokendra Sharma
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Indian Express | More delivery and payment apps will not make India a tech leader
By Arindam Goswami
While India celebrates its unicorn boom, a troubling innovation gap separates us from true technological leadership. Despite boasting of the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem and a massive pool of technical talent, India needs to do a lot more when it comes to cutting-edge DeepTech innovation. Its unicorns solve distribution problems rather than scientific ones. Its brightest minds build payment apps, not quantum computers. India’s venture capital flows to the next food delivery service, not fusion energy. This paradox demands explanation — and action.
By Arindam Goswami
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Moneycontrol | Lessons from China's support for local startups — a path to innovation for India
By Arindam Goswami
China's local governments drive innovation through fiscal autonomy, incentives, and policy experimentation. India can adopt similar reforms by enhancing fiscal power, creating innovation zones, and aligning municipal leaders’ incentives with startup growth to foster a competitive, innovative economy
By Arindam Goswami
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India’s World | Towards techno-strategic autonomy: India should spearhead an Open Technology Maitri
By Lokendra Sharma and Pranay Kotasthane
In face of supply chain warfare and security concerns, India should create an Open Technology Maitri, 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.
By Lokendra Sharma and Pranay Kotasthane
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NDTV | Let 'Thermodynamics' Teach You Something About AI
By Arindam Goswami
As the Paris AI Action Summit 2025 descended into a cacophony of competing national interests and corporate agendas, it offered a perfect illustration of entropy in action: a system of global governance dissolving into disorder without sufficient organising energy to maintain coherence. This collapse of international cooperation on artificial intelligence (AI) standards reveals a fundamental truth applicable far beyond the diplomatic sphere: without intentional intervention, our AI ecosystems will naturally trend toward maximum chaos.
By Arindam Goswami
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The Hindu | AI infrastructure, the key to global AI supremacy
By Arindam Goswami
For countries such as India, the diverse approaches by lead AI players such as the U.S, the European Union and China offer lessons.
The United States has made a bold move in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race with its new federal AI infrastructure policy. What appears to be a domestic initiative to establish AI data centres across federal lands, is actually a well-thought-out strategy to maintain America’s technological supremacy in this field. Other countries have also developed their own AI infrastructure strategies to face this competition. India faces resource constraints. The challenge for India, therefore, lies in adopting a strategy which will work without the deep financial reserves of the U.S. or China.
By Arindam Goswami
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Deccan Herald | Curiosity in the age of AI
By Sourav Mannaraprayil & Wini Fred Gurung
Are people using AI-driven technologies like ChatGPT correctly, or have they impacted the level of creativity? This is not to say that people should completely shun these mediums or dismiss that they have expedited efficiency. They do come with a lot. They do come with a lot of perks. However, this growing reliance on AI can be concerning.
By Sourav Mannaraprayil & Wini Fred Gurung
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Moneycontrol | A framework for technological sovereignty without being insular
By Arindam Goswami
Technological sovereignty emphasises national control over critical technologies while balancing security, innovation, and international cooperation, avoiding corporate dominance and ensuring citizens' rights within a fair global technological framework
By Arindam Goswami
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Indian Express | The colonial era of AI is here — India must chart its own course
By Arindam Goswami
The Paris AI Action Summit, with its impressive array of declarations and initiatives, could not mask a deeper geopolitical reality: We have entered the colonial era of artificial intelligence, where corporate sovereignty increasingly trumps national sovereignty, and global governance and ethics have been put on the backburner while still being paid lip service. The final declaration by the real power players— the US and the UK — speaks volumes. They are the tech giants who have effectively colonised the digital frontier.
By Arindam Goswami
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Moneycontrol | India rolls out the red carpet for private nuclear firms
By Lokendra Sharma
France and India last week declared an intent to partner each other to develop advanced modular nuclear reactors and SMRs. Juxtaposed with the recent union budget’s proposals to rework India’s legal framework for nuclear energy and set a rather ambitious capacity addition target, there’s a clear signal to the private sector to step in.
By Lokendra Sharma
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The Hindu | Implications of the AI Diffusion Framework
By Ashwin Prasad
India has set ambitious goals for its space programme in the next two decades. These goals hinge on powerful, reusable rockets such as the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s upcoming Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV). In addition to the NGLV, India must tap into its private sector to develop more such rockets in order to secure strategic autonomy in its access to outer space.
By Ashwin Prasad
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Firstpost | Paris AI Summit: How Indo-French partnership can be a rule maker for future innovations
By Arindam Goswami
As co-chair of the AI Action Summit in Paris, India, under the prime ministership of Narendra Modi, has the opportunity to kickstart a new chapter in global technological cooperation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has a pervasive impact across different sectors. In that sense, it is a general-purpose technology (GPT), to borrow the term from Jeffrey Ding’s GPT Diffusion Theory, which promises to reshape various sectors. Nations are grappling with both its enormous potential and inherent challenges. Now is the time to come together and collaborate on setting a strong foundation for the years to come.
With its considerable experience in building and running a vast digital public infrastructure, coupled with a workforce that has proven expertise in software development, India could become an important voice in the global AI discourse
By Arindam Goswami
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Moneycontrol | Despite its laudable intent, One Nation One Subscription is not a silver bullet
By Lokendra Sharma
The laudable intent of the One Nation One Subscription notwithstanding, it may not solve the problem of knowledge creation for educational institutions in tier 2 and tier 3 cities of India. A holistic approach for such institutions is required.
By Lokendra Sharma and Shambhavi Naik
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Firstpost | Creative insecurity: What India can learn from Chinese DeepSeek saga
By Arindam Goswami and Shobhankita Reddy
DeepSeek benefitted from a supportive structural Chinese research and development ecosystem that existed for several decades. Also, Xi Jinping’s vision for a ‘Chinese Dream’ and national rejuvenation is rooted in technological supremacy
By Arindam Goswami and Shobhankita Reddy
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The Hindu | The U.S.’s immigration blocks as a self-defeating path
By Arindam Goswami
What do we see in the bustling corridors of Silicon Valley, the research labs of Boston, and the biotech hubs of San Diego? Skilled immigrants do not just fill jobs; they create them. They launch startups, file patents and drive innovation, expanding the very foundation of American employment.
However, to understand this, we need to challenge our most basic assumptions about how labour markets work in knowledge economies.
The debate over H-1B visas in the United States seems to hinge on a seemingly very intuitive argument: that restricting skilled immigration will translate into more jobs for native workers. On the contrary, extensive research has shown that this approach is flawed and, in fact, counterproductive to innovation and job creation.
By Arindam Goswami
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News18 | Opinion | Atal Innovation Mission: Building An Ecosystem For Technological Diffusion
By Arindam Goswami and Bhaskari J
AIM focuses on accelerating innovation; the path to that is not just via capturing first-mover advantage, but also by creating linkages to enable cross-sectoral adaptation of technologies
By Arindam Goswami and Bhaskari J
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