HTLS Day 2: Chris Miller says 'design expertise' can help India in global 'chip war'

Miller said the challenging part of building a chip ecosystem in India is to find a niche.

India can leverage its design expertise to carve out a niche in the highly competitive semiconductor industry, said Chris Miller, the author of 'Chip War', on Day 2 of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2023. In a conversation with R Sukumar, editor-in-chief, Hindustan Times, Miller said no country in the world currently has the capability to build a self-sufficient supply chain when it comes to designing and manufacturing semiconductors.

Chris Miller, the author of 'Chip War'

"Over the past number of years, I have come to realise the extent to which my life and all our lives are structured around thousands of tiny silicon chips buried deep in the electronic devices that we rely on...These chips are not only important because they make our devices possible but also because all of the key trends that define our world are shaped by these semiconductors – whether it's the shape of the world economy. For example, China spends as much money each year importing chips as it spends importing oil. You can't understand the global trading system without semiconductors or if it's the rise of big tech companies and AI which has been enabled by ever more advanced semiconductors," he said, elaborating on the strategic importance of semiconductors.

Talking about his book, he said, "All of the key trends that are shaping and transforming the world today have semiconductors at their core and so the book argues that you can't understand the world unless you have semiconductors at the center of your analysis."

Miller said the challenging part of building a chip ecosystem in India is to find a niche.

"I think every country today is looking at where they can fit in the chip ecosystem because there's no single country in the world that is anywhere close to having a self-sufficient supply chain domestically. So for countries and companies, the challenge is to find the niche where they have a comparative advantage and where they can compete at the cutting edge. So for countries like India which is trying to build up its semiconductor ecosystem, I think taking major players head on is a very big challenge because they are so well established, because they have resources on their side," he said.

He, however, said having design expertise can really help India build its own ecosystem.

"But the design expertise is something that India has a lot of opportunity to leverage because there's so many different ways you can use design expertise and so many different niches in which it can be expressed. So that's the challenge for really every country is to find the part of the supply chain where their comparative advantage lies," he added.