India's Ability To Prepare For Tech-Driven Wars To Decide Country's Future: Gautam Adani At IIT Kharagpur

Stressing the role of IIT Kharagpur's in technology, self-reliance and nation building, Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani on Monday said as the world is moving from conventional wars to technology-driven ones, India's ability to prepare will decide the country's future.

Speaking at the 75th Foundation Day of IIT Kharagpur, he said that in the 21st century, a nation can be independent and still be "bound by dependence".

"The wars that we have to fight today are often invisible. They are fought in server farms, and not in trenches. The weapons are algorithms, not guns. The empires are not built on land; they are built in data centres. The armies are botnets; and not battalions," he said.

Adani, who was a special guest at the event, said that 90 per cent of India's semiconductors are imported and one disruption or sanction can freeze the country's digital economy.

"As the world is moving from conventional wars to technology-driven wars of power, India's ability to prepare will decide our future," he said.

"In the case of energy vulnerability, we import 85% of our oil. A single geopolitical incident can restrict our growth," the industrialist said.

"In terms of technology dependence, 90 per cent of our semiconductors are imported. One disruption or sanction can freeze our digital economy," he said.

When India's data crosses the country's borders, every bit of it becomes raw material for foreign algorithms, creates foreign wealth and strengthens foreign dominance, he said.

"And in the case of military dependence, many of our critical systems are imported, binding our national security to the political will and supply chains of other nations," he said.

Noting the existence of an erstwhile prison on the campus, where freedom fighters used to be confined, Adani said, "Eighty years ago, here in the Hijli jail, young men and women fought for the right to govern our land. That same fight continues; only the weapons have changed."

The industrialist then described the students of the IIT Kharagpur as the next generation of freedom fighters.

"But I can tell you, the battlefield is not just about protecting our nation's borders. It is about securing our technology leadership and ensuring we are able to stay at the forefront of global innovation," he said.

Adani said that in the world of robotics and AI, cost advantages will vanish overnight and one can quickly lose the ability to compete.

"This is not a transformation at 1X speed. It is 10X. It is 100X. And it is accelerating towards 1000X," he said.

Predicting the way technology will evolve in the coming days, Adani said, "AI will start to build AI; robots start to build robots; code starts to write code; machines start to teach machines and discoveries start to fuel more discoveries. And this is why I call it our second freedom struggle."

He warned that tomorrow's “trillion-dollar valued disruptors” will bend others to their will and some of them will go on to dominate the world like no company has ever done before.

“Companies will become more powerful than many nations,” Adani said.

Educational institutions too must transform, and they must move at the speed of change, drive cutting-edge research, he said, adding that it is no longer about producing brilliant graduates but about yielding brilliant patriots that graduate “armed with ideas, discipline, and the will to make India'.

While this is not a call to give up the heritage of our top institutions, it is indeed an appeal for designing a different future before it is too late, he said.

The business tycoon urged the corporate bodies to share equal responsibility for the innovation deficit India faces as they hire from institutes like IITs.

"We stand on the shoulders of public institutions like ISRO, BARC, DRDO, ICMR, NCL, and many more. These have given us the inventions, breakthroughs and discoveries that form our launchpads," he said.

From ISRO's Chandrayaan to Aadhaar, from UPI to vaccine research, from freight corridors to renewable grids, it is worth reflecting that it is the government that has built the foundation of our modern economy, Adani said.

"And this model will not adequately sustain in the race we are entering. If India is to lead in the age of transformative technologies like advanced materials, biotechnology, deep tech, and many others, we must carry our share of the nation's innovation burden, translated not into marketing slogans, but into budget allocations, world-class laboratories and risk capital," he said.