Rajiv Chandrasekhar inaugurates Centre for Digital Intelligence, Security Hardware and Architecture at IIT-Madras

Speaking at the event, the minister said that in the next five years, centres of gravity in the technology space will be rebuilt around newer geopolitics and newer talent pools for which India is strongly positioned.

Young Indians will shape the future of tech design, create new products, new devices and new solutions that will have global markets and global solutions, said Rajeev Chandrasekhar

“We are living in extremely interesting times for technology space and in the next five years, centres of gravity will be rebuilt around newer geopolitics and newer talent pools for which New India is strongly positioned,” Chandrasekhar said, while delivering the presidential address virtually at the inauguration of PS CDISHA at IIT, Madras.

He said the centre has been created through contribution of one of IIT-M alumni from the class of 1985, Pratap Subrahmanyam. As part of the Computer Science Engineering Department, it will work in the areas of Computer Architecture, Security, Machine Learning and VLSI Design, he added.

In his address, the minister said the three trends that are shaping the future of the world economy are acceleration of digitalisation of the world at a blistering pace, the increasing need for countries and enterprises to have a network or coalition of trusted sources of technology, safe and trusted partners in technology solution, devices and products and having more and more digital talent that is in demand all around the world.

“India sits at the intersection of these three trends. Our technologically empowered young Indians are going to shape the future of tech design and build and create new products, new devices and new solutions that will have global markets and global solutions,” Chandrasekhar added.

Highlighting the initiatives taken by the government under the Semicon India Programme and Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) Programme, the minister said, “Our focus is on creating manufacturing capacity, packaging and verification capacity and capabilities, design research and skills. We have unprecedented opportunities to capitalise and achieve our trillion-dollar digital goal set by our prime minister.”

Chandrasekhar also praised the efforts of IIT, Madras director Prof V Kamakoti, who is the chief architect of Digital India RISC-V microprocessor programme (DIR-V), for giving impetus to start-ups working in RISC-V area and providing them global visibility.

The aim of DIR-V is to make India not only a RISC-V Talent Hub for the world but also be the supplier of RISC-V SoC (System on Chips) for servers, mobile devices, automotive, IoT and microcontrollers across the globe.