Will the Chips Get “Up” in India?

Review of Pranay Kotasthane and Abhiram Manchi’s “When the Chips are Down” (Bloomsbury, 2023)

Authors

I have always been fascinated by chips. Having seen the evolution of computing devices from the bulkier personal computers and laptops in the 2000s to handheld smartphones in the 2010s, I often admired the engineering finesse that went into designing ever-compact and intricately designed semiconductor chips.

Till late 2010s, among the gaming enthusiasts in India, Nvidia was known for its computer graphics cards. When Nvidia’s graphics processing units drove the company to become one of the most valuable in the world in just a few years, it was emblematic of how central chips had become to the global techno-economic landscape.

Therefore, reading Pranay Kotasthane and Abhiram Manchi’s book “When the Chips are Down” was as much about appreciating the brilliance behind these chips as it was about learning the nuances of siliconcraft. In this blog, I am penning down some thoughts about the book.

First, the timing of Kotasthane and Manchi’s book is unmistakable. Dimand-supply mismatch for chips during the COVID-19 pandemic had led to long delays in the automobile sector. Pandemic linked disruptions had also underscored the need of baking in resilience into complex supply chains of tech products including chips. Since the book’s publication in 2023, it has only become more important in light of the US-China tech contestations, Trump-induced geopolitical and geoeconomic disruptions and the rapid expansion of the AI bubble.

Over the last few years as I read news reports about semiconductor developments, I began to appreciate the complex, globalised supply chains that made chip production and usage possible. That brings me to my second point. This book does a deep dive beyond the headlines, and highlights Netherlands’s dominance in manufacturing photolithography equipment, East and South East Asia’s contribution to the outsourced semiconductor assembly and test component, the US’s hold over designing and electronic design automation tools, and Taiwan’s lead in cutting-edge fabs.

Third, what stands out about this book is that it offers a template for anyone wishing to write a book about geopolitics of any particular technology (say biotech, quantum or AI). That said, one recurrent issue with the book is that the chapters seem disjointed at times, framing the book as a collection of well-researched thoughts instead of a cohesive and carefully weaved narrative.

Fourth, a highlight of this book was its chapter on India, aptly called “India is an Enigma.” Buoyed by the recent government initiatives around establishing fabs in India, very few would remember that the country once had a thriving public sector fab in the 1980s (Semiconductor Complex Limited in Chandigarh) that was not far behind the cutting-edge of that decade. This book takes us back into the history of India’s earliest efforts towards manufacturing chips. In the contemporary context, Kotasthane and Manchi highlight the one crucial leverage India has in the global chip ecosystem — country’s chip-designing talent which is deeply embedded in world’s leading design companies.

Fifth, although the authors have touched upon the Indian government’s push in 2021 and 2022 towards establishing fabs in the country, there is a need to re-examine the India story in greater detail in light of the recent chip-related developments in the country and geopolitical upheaval globally. In reference to the global semiconductor ecosystem, the authors end the book by claiming that “[t]he chips won’t be down for too long.” But can the same be said for India? Can the chips get up in the country? A detailed story on India’s tryst with semiconductors is waiting to be told.