In the next five years, the technology industry will undergo a shift in the centres of gravity around newer geopolitics and talent pools, for which India is strongly positioned, said Union Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Electronics & IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, on Thursday.

The Minister made this remark virtually while delivering the presidential address at the inauguration of Pratap Subrahmanyam Centre for Digital Intelligence, Security Hardware and Architecture Centre (PS CDISHA) at IIT, Madras.

The PS CDISHA centre has been created by one of IIT-M’s alumni from the class of 1985, Pratap Subrahmanyam. It will operate in the Computer Science Engineering Department and work in the areas of Computer Architecture, Security, Machine Learning and VLSI Design.

Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar highlighted three trends that are shaping the future of the world economy, including the acceleration of digitalisation, the need for countries and enterprises to have a coalition of trusted sources of technology, and having more and more digital talent that is in demand worldwide. India is strongly positioned at the intersection of these trends, with technologically empowered young Indians set to shape the future of technology design and build, creating new products, devices, and solutions with global markets and solutions.

The Minister 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 the RISC-V area and providing them with global visibility. The DIR-V aims 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 & Microcontrollers worldwide.

Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar further mentioned the initiatives taken by the Government under the Semicon India Programme and Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) Program, which focus on creating manufacturing capacity, packaging and verification capacity and capabilities, design research and skills. He expressed confidence that India has unprecedented opportunities to capitalise and achieve its trillion-dollar digital goal set by the Prime Minister.

Apart from Prof V Kamakoti, faculty members of IIT, Madras and researchers were also present on the occasion.