Technopolitik

Last week saw a flurry of technopolitical developments as the US and India announced a slew of technology and defense deals. In case you missed it, we had a special post dissecting the preliminary details of India’s accession to the Artemis Accords. Check it out here! Also tune in to this podcast episode of All Things Policy, where Pranay Kotasthane, Aditya Ramanathan, Bharath Reddy, and Saurabh Todi from the High-Tech Geopolitics team discuss the announcements in the India-US joint statement in the field of Semiconductors, Advanced Telecommunications, and Space.

Matsyanyaaya 1: Concerns Surrounding TikTok and the Future of ‘Project Texas’

— Anushka Saxena

On June 16, the CEO of the controversial Chinese media platform TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, sent a letter to US Congress Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), responding to their questions about the company surrounding the storage of data of American users on the platform. In his testimony to a House Committee of the US Congress, Shou had previously stated that "American data has always been stored in Virginia and Singapore." But now, a Forbes investigation from late May has revealed that this may not entirely be true. This investigation prompted said Senators to seek answers from TikTok, and Shou's letter has confirmed said suspicions.

What did Forbes' investigation say?

On May 30, Forbes published a report arguing that "over the past several years, thousands of TikTok creators and businesses around the world have given the company sensitive financial information—including their social security numbers and tax IDs—so that they can be paid by the platform. But unbeknownst to many of them, TikTok has stored that personal financial information on servers in China that are accessible by employees there, Forbes has learned."

Further, their report argued: "TikTok uses various internal tools and databases from its Beijing-based parent ByteDance to manage payments to creators who earn money through the app, including many of its biggest stars in the United States and Europe. The same tools are used to pay outside vendors and small businesses working with TikTok. But a trove of records obtained by Forbes from multiple sources across different parts of the company reveals that highly sensitive financial and personal information about those prized users and third parties has been stored in China. The discovery also raises questions about whether employees who are not authorized to access that data have been able to. It draws on internal communications, audio recordings, videos, screenshots, documents marked "Privileged and Confidential," and several people familiar with the matter."

…And what has Shou said in his letter to Blackburn and Blumenthal?

The point of the letter is to confirm that over the past year, TikTok has collaborated closely with Oracle to implement various measures to enhance the protection of the application, systems, and the security of data belonging to its users in the United States. 

They also announced that in January 2023, they had achieved a significant milestone in this endeavour – the default storage location for US user data has been changed. All US user traffic is currently being directed to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. While TikTok's data centres in the US and Singapore are still utilized for backup purposes, the company's ongoing efforts involve removing US users' private data from our data centres. Their objective is to fully transition to Oracle cloud servers in the United States, for which, as of March 2023, they have also started deleting previously stored data from foreign servers.

But the controversy has arisen from the second main iteration of the letter, which reads: "TikTok has been clear that there are certain, limited exceptions to the definition of protected data. These exceptions are in place to help ensure interoperability of TikTok as a global platform and were determined as part of TikTok's extensive, multi-year negotiations with CFIUS that have occurred under two Administrations. Exceptions include categories such as public data, business metrics, interoperability data, and certain creator data, if a creator voluntarily signs up for a commercial program to be supported by TikTok in reaching new audiences and monetizing content. As part of Project Texas, we are also designing a trusted path to enable TikTok to respond to global government and litigation demands for documents relating to users."

This confirms that if a content creator based out of the US has subscribed to paid content promotion programmes on the platform for the sake of 'interoperability', their data has been redirected to servers abroad… including those in China.

The senators have responded in an obviously indignant manner, stating: "We are extremely concerned that TikTok is storing Americans' personal, private data within the reach of the Chinese government. TikTok executives appear to have repeatedly and intentionally misled Congress when answering how the company secures and protects the data of Americans. TikTok's response makes it crystal clear that Americans' data is still exposed to Beijing's draconian and pervasive spying regimes – despite the claims of TikTok's misleading public relations campaign."

What is Project Texas?

'Project Texas' is Shou Zi Chew's answer to the US Congress's security concerns. Through the Project, TikTok in the US would maintain local data servers disallowing any flow of information of American users outside the country, and Oracle will reportedly own these servers. Moreover, as part of the Project, TikTok might also reveal its algorithm to the US agencies for greater transparency.

At this point, the countries of the 'Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance', namely the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK, as well as the European Parliament, have already collectively banned TikTok from being installed in government-issued/ federal service devices, to prevent sensitive official data from reaching the hands of China, or any externally based TikTok server that the US may have no jurisdiction over. 

Moreover, a Bill by US Senator McCaul on 'Deterring America's Technological Adversaries' Act (DATA Act) is already tabled for discussion in Congress since February this year, and it identifies TikTok and its parent company 'ByteDance' major security threats to American users' privacy. With the developments in the debate on TikTok and data governance likely to continue, the latest controversy surrounding the letter may well be the death knell that pushes the US to adopt broader legislation regulating civilian uses of the app. 

Cyberpolitik Explainer : The Soviet Semiconductor Failure

— Revati Gandekar

Semiconductors are critical for technological sectors that produce electronic components such as transistors, diodes, integrated circuits, and microprocessors. These components are essential for computers, telecommunications, consumer electronics, military, and aerospace. The semiconductor industry played a pivotal role in shaping the technological landscape of the 20th century. While the United States and other Western countries experienced significant growth and innovation in this field, the Soviet Union also made notable advancements in the semiconductor industry. This aims to analyze the rise and fall of the semiconductor industry in the USSR, exploring what contributed to its initial success, the subsequent challenges, and ultimately the industry's failure. 

In the late 1950s, the USSR recognized the potential of semiconductor technology and sought to develop its industry. They established research institutes, such as the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology and the Lebedev Physical Institute, which focused on semiconductor research and development. Additionally, collaborations with Eastern Bloc countries, such as East Germany, helped accelerate the industry's growth.

Unlike the market-driven approach of the West industries, the USSR's semiconductor sector was primarily state-driven. The Soviet government heavily invested in research and development, providing massive funding and resources to semiconductor projects. This support allowed Soviet scientists and engineers to progress significantly in the field, albeit often in a more secretive and controlled environment.

The Soviet semiconductor industry achieved several notable milestones during its heyday. In the early 1960s, Soviet scientists developed the first silicon planar transistor, a breakthrough that revolutionized transistor manufacturing worldwide. The USSR also made significant progress in integrated circuit technology, contributing to advancements in military electronics, space exploration, and industrial automation.

While the USSR achieved remarkable progress in the semiconductor industry, it faced numerous challenges and limitations that eventually hindered its growth. One significant factor was the lack of open collaboration and information exchange with Western countries. The USSR's isolationist policies limited access to global semiconductor developments, impeding the industry's ability to keep pace with international advancements. This stifled innovation, as government committees with little technical expertise decided on resource allocation, technology adoption, and production targets. The lack of market-oriented incentives hindered the industry's ability to respond to changing market dynamics and meet international standards.

One of the main challenges that the Soviet Union faced in developing its semiconductor industry was the initial ideological opposition to cybernetics, which was seen as a bourgeois pseudoscience that threatened the Marxist-Leninist doctrine. This attitude changed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when Nikita Khrushchev adopted a policy that encouraged computer production and scientific research. The Soviet Union realized the strategic implications of semiconductors and set up new facilities to manufacture them in cities like Leningrad and Riga. In 1958, the Soviet government set up a whole new city, Zelenograd, a technical-type Special Economic Zone, just for semiconductor manufacturing.

The Soviet Union's centralized planning and bureaucratic system also posed challenges for the semiconductor industry. This top-down approach led to inefficiencies. As a result, in 1973-74, USSR produced only basic types of semiconductors (transistors and diodes), and the production was close to only 2% of the US output. 

However, the Soviet semiconductor industry soon encountered another problem: technological lag behind the West. Moreover, the Soviet Union could not keep up with the rapid innovation and miniaturization of Western semiconductors, especially after the invention of the integrated circuit in 1959. It also suffered from a shortage of skilled personnel, quality control, and market incentives. To overcome these difficulties, it resorted to copying Western designs and importing Western machinery and components. For example, the KR580VM80A was a clone of the Intel 8080 CPU, and Soviet scientists also replicated the Texas Instruments SN-51, as these processors were able to execute several thousand instructions per second. The USSR also tried to obtain specialized production equipment and complete production processes from the Free World, sometimes indirectly from the US. However, this increased dependence on foreign sources violated international trade regulations and prevented original innovation. 

The country faced a scarcity of raw materials, inadequate infrastructure, and a lack of market-oriented incentives. Additionally, this contributed to poor quality control and an inability to compete with Western semiconductor manufacturers.

The global interests of major semiconductor-producing countries, particularly the United States and its allies, also influenced the USSR's failure in the industry. The Cold War rivalry intensified the competition between the Soviet Union and the West. The US and its allies pursued technological advancements in semiconductors to gain a competitive edge in various industries, including telecommunications, computers, and consumer electronics. 

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the semiconductor industry in the USSR experienced a rapid decline. It marked the end of its semiconductor industry as a coherent entity. Most of the Soviet computer manufacturers ceased operations or switched to other products. A few companies that survived into the 1990s used foreign components and have yet to achieve significant production volumes. The economic turmoil, political instability, and transition to a market-based economy further eroded the industry. The dismantling of the planned economy also led to a brain drain, as skilled professionals looked for opportunities in the private sector or emigrated to other countries.

The Soviet Union had some achievements in this field, such as creating the first electronic computer in continental Europe (MESM) and developing some local semiconductor facilities. However, it faced many challenges, including ideological opposition, technological lag, foreign dependence, and internal disorganization. The dissolution of the Soviet Union resulted in the fragmentation and decline of its semiconductor industry. 

In conclusion, complete government intervention in the semiconductor industry in USSR had adverse effects on isolating innovation and lagging behind foreign rivals. The government controlled and centralized the semiconductor industry but failed to foster innovation and competitiveness. The government intervention isolated it as it lagged behind the US and its allies in terms of technology, production, and market share. While the USSR made significant strides in semiconductor research and development, the industry's ultimate decline can be attributed to factors such as limited international collaboration, centralized planning, economic challenges, and the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. Despite its eventual demise, the legacy of the Soviet semiconductor industry serves as a reminder of the importance of collaboration, innovation, and market-oriented policies.

Matsyanyaaya 2: The Fission Factor in India-US Ties

— Saurabh Todi

Last month Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh revealed that Indian scientists are working on developing small modular reactors, or SMRs, one of the most promising emerging technologies in nuclear power. The interest in new technology and India's ambitious plan to build 10 new reactors in a decade is evidence of an enduring commitment to nuclear energy. Recently, the India-US Joint Statement following PM Modi's State Visit also affirmed nuclear energy as a necessary resource to meet our nations' climate, energy transition, and energy security needs. Both leaders also noted the ongoing discussion on developing next-generation small modular reactor technologies in a collaborative mode for the domestic market as well as for export. 

The nuclear industry is undergoing a renaissance. Over 50 nuclear reactors are under construction globally today. Even countries like South Korea and Japan, which were planning to phase out nuclear power, have reconsidered or scaled back their decisions. The European Union's inclusion of nuclear power as a sustainable investment has further enhanced its appeal. Technological advancements led by start-ups and established companies have further improved the long-term outlook for nuclear power. Innovations such as SMRs, pebble-bed reactors, and molten-salt reactors aim to enhance the safety, flexibility in size, and economic viability of nuclear plants. China also recently issued an operational permit for its first experimental thorium-based reactor.

This sector is ripe for further and intensified cooperation between India-US and other close partners such as Japan and Australia.

Matsyanyaaya 3: High-Tech Takes Centre-Stage

— Pranay Kotasthane

I don’t think any serious policy analyst—even five years ago—would have anticipated that the press briefing of an Indian PM’s Official State Visit to the US would headline concrete actions on high-tech areas such as semiconductors, critical minerals, telecommunications, Space, Quantum Computing, and Artificial Intelligence.

Nevertheless, here we are. Technology is now the centrepiece of the India-US partnership. This technology framework includes strategic technologies, such as jet engine manufacturing in India and space, and also commercial technologies, such as telecommunications, optical fibres, and semiconductors.

How Does it Matter?

Technology occupying the pole position in India-US relations is a big change in the foreign policy outlooks on technology partnerships. Here’s why.

Phase 1.0

After its independence, India interacted with many countries in the West to access advanced industrial technologies. The US specifically assisted India’s nuclear and space programmes, helped develop IIT Kanpur, and contributed to the Green Revolution.

Phase 2.0

But technology became a sore point as the Cold War picked up pace. India faced stringent denial of technology from international regimes in the nuclear and space sectors. The denial of Indian membership into multilateral export control regimes such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) cast a long shadow on India’s foreign policy outlook. The US came to be seen as a technology denier. India’s default stance over the next five decades was to protect its turf in global technological fora while simultaneously developing and shielding domestic capabilities.

This is why the civil nuclear deal in 2005 was such a big deal. It helped India and the US move on from a low-level equilibrium. However, technology still remained a marginal area of cooperation at a time when terrorism and American support for Pakistan gated progress in other sectors.

Phase 3.0

The Modi-Biden Summit is a firm indication that India’s foreign policy outlook on technology has changed. Contributing factors are a growing domestic technological base; an increased presence of Indian talent in the global technology ecosystem; emergent geopolitical realities concerning China; and the rising contribution of crosscutting technologies in national power.

The Indian foreign policy establishment now has a far more positive view of technology and the opportunities it offers for collaboration and competition, apart from contestation. India also realises that technology is now a global enterprise where autarchy is not an option. The contemporary concern is to manage interdependence and make technological supply chains trusted, transparent and resilient. More recently, India’s advances in large-scale digital public infrastructure—payments, identity and data-sharing—give it the confidence to use technology to deepen diplomatic ties.

As for the US, technology has become a primary driver for addressing the China challenge. Nuclear weapons make large-scale conventional conflict unlikely. Similarly, China’s disproportionate role in material supply chains makes any large-scale economic decoupling costly. Consequently, contestation has been in the high-technology domain.

Apart from the denial of technology to China, it has also meant that the US has changed the foreign policy use of technology towards its partners. Cooperation on nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS arrangement showed that the US was now willing to share sensitive technologies with partners to counter China. Back then, in the context of India’s dependence on Russia for defence systems, I wrote:

It is thus in the West’s interest to apply this new technology alliance mindset to India. As more options become available, India will find it easier to reduce its dependence on Russia.

It seems this has come true to an extent. The US has been more forthcoming in sharing technology than opening its markets. The FTA with India remains a non-starter, but technology collaboration has grown rapidly.

What does it Imply?

High-tech cooperation is also not as high-stakes as the more contentious areas like trade and the South China Sea. The India-US relationship is so far behind the production possibility frontier on technology, trade and defence that there are enough low-hanging fruits to pick. And that’s exactly what we are seeing now.

In edition #165, I proposed a tri-axis framework to look at the India-US relationship: state-to-state relations, state-to-people relations, and people-to-people relations. There has never been a problem on the people-to-people axis. As the State Visit shows, state-to-state relations have also turned a corner. However, it is the state-to-people axis that is the problematic axis. Many Indians still seem to harbour a deep frustration with the American State. On the other hand, many Americans also have doubts about India as a partner of strategic importance.

Only the two administrations could do something to break this ceiling. By delivering on the asymmetric promises under the technology and defence agreements, the state-to-people axis will finally move on from recollections of the technology denial regime. The announcements are just the beginning; a lot depends on the execution from both sides in these areas.

Note: this piece was earlier published on Anticipating the Unintended #216. Check it out here!

Our Reading Menu

[Explainer] The problem with India’s new guidelines on genetically modified insects, by Dr. Shambhavi Naik.

[Op-ed] India mustn’t miss this chance to supercharge its electronic goods industry, by Anupam Manur and Pranay Kotasthane.

[Op-ed] Our PLI schemes are in need of a coherent trade policy, by Satya S. Sahu.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Matsyanyaaya: Insights from recent OEWG discussions on Information and Communications Technologies

— Anushka Saxena

The militarisation of cyberspace is a reality. And to enable states to discuss and adopt common rules for global governance of cyberspace, on 31 December 2020, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 75/240  establishing an Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) on the security of and in the use of Information and Communications Technologies. The mandate for the Group extends from 2021 to 2025.

The Group recently concluded its informal, inter-sessional meetings on 26 May, and deliberations put forth by various states give us some insights into the kind of talking points we could look out for during the fifth Substantive Session of the Group, scheduled for July 2023.

To summarise, various stakeholders, ranging from governments and representatives of UN bodies to scholars from think tanks and technology corporations, submitted ideas about what the 2023 Annual Progress Report (APR) should entail. All of their ideas either build on or expand what has already been discussed in the previous substantive and informal sessions in 2023 or the 2022 APR. Some interesting ideas are as follows:

* Iran submitted a Working Paper on establishing a provisional directory of 'Points of Contact' (PoCs) on ICT and cybersecurity.

●     The first proposal to develop such a global directory was tabled in the UN Governmental Group of Experts Reports of 2013 (A/68/98). Now, every GGE and OEWG discussion notes progress on the directory.

●     The aim of this directory shall be for states to appoint field experts in technical or diplomatic positions (or both), which would be a part of a global PoC network debating everything from responsible state behaviour in cyberspace and the applicability of international law to defining threats to ICT.

●     As we know, the current Indian government has quite a knack for portals, and to formalise the creation of a PoCs global directory, India, too, has proposed the creation of a Global Cyber Security Cooperation Portal. The proposal, submitted by India's Permanent Representative in New York in July 2022, states that such a Portal shall be voluntarily updated by states and maintained by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs.

* The UNOCT/UNCCT and the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate presented proposals for 'capacity building'. The proposal by the former was basically about glorifying the successes of its Global CounterTerrorism Programme on Cybersecurity and New Technologies. But the latter proposal, presented by the UNCTED, emphatically highlights the challenge of malicious online activity by rogue non-state actors and how existing counter-terrorism infrastructure can be leveraged to deal with it.

●     The important recommendation is to develop comprehensive training programmes for law enforcement personnel and criminal justice practitioners working with digital evidence. The mention of the latter may be an important signal of more private sector participation in navigating the legalities of what constitutes 'terrorism' in cyberspace.

* Submissions from the private sector mainly highlighted which governmental proposals are the most crucial for focus on in the next substantive session and how they can be expanded or narrowed down:

●     Stimson Center's submission iterated that the two major emerging technologies states should agree on are common threats to ICT Security are ransomware and Artificial Intelligence.

●     It should be noted that both El Salvador and Czechia had made statements during the last substantive session in March on the need for developing standards on 'responsible state behaviour' in new and emerging tech like AI and Quantum. But these efforts would be futile until states can first agree on what harmful use of AI/ Quantum is, given the dual nature of such technologies, and then move on to standard-setting.

●     DCX Technologies presented anecdotes on how to avert a ransomware attack and engage with the attacker. Two suggestions stand out from their four-page intervention – one, that knowledge of critical infrastructure is essential to know how to protect it (such as by using enterprise security tools to detect malicious behaviour), and second, that any response to a large-scale ransomware attack such as the one DCX faced in 2020 requires a transparent, multi-stakeholder mitigation model.

If adopted and developed, these ideas could provide meaningful direction for the next set of discussions at the OEWG-ICT. However, if we look at some of the concerns governments presented during the fourth substantive session of the Group earlier in March, we can safely conclude that some of these ideas are a massive jump ahead of the tide. For example, India's primary concern during the session was as fundamental as something can be – for states to converge on their definitions and interpretations of international law! Similarly, Kenya's proposal entailed that states at least converge on how to define 'common threats in the cyberspace'.

This is, however, not to say that there exist no agreements whatsoever – states at the OEWG have now come to agree that the UN Charter is readily applicable to cybersecurity (especially provisions under Articles 2(1), 2(4), and 33). In doing so, they have cemented the idea that existing global governance institutions like the International Court of Justice can be utilised even to resolve cyber-incident disputes peacefully. This has not stopped countries like Russia and Syria from proposing a new legally-binding mechanism to govern state behaviour in ICT, citing the inability of existing mechanisms to do so.

Overall, some convergence exists on building capacity, creating a global knowledge base involving both state and non-state actors, and creating a due diligence mechanism for states to respond to malicious activities originating from their territory. The next Substantive Session would be vital to understand how states respond to these ideas and whether they can agree to resolve some of the fundamental challenges facing the OEWG's ambitious goals.

Cyberpolitik : A “broadly” unclear Light-Touch Regulation for India’s Online Gaming Industry.

— Satya Sahu

Online gaming is one of the fastest-growing segments of India’s digital economy, with millions of users playing various games on platforms ranging from smartphones, consoles and PCs. India’s gaming population is pegged to reach 700 million by 2025, with a significant portion of players spending real money on games. (current conversion rate is about 24% or 120 million players. It is a good bet that this trend will comfortably allow the Indian online gaming industry's ambitions of growing to USD 8.6 billion by 2027. 

However, online gaming also comes with challenges and risks, because it can serve as a pathway to gambling using real money, addiction, an easy target for cybercrime, and exposure to illegal illicit content.

So of course, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) notified amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, related to online gaming in early April 2023.  The amendments aim to enforce greater due diligence by online gaming intermediaries, such as platforms, websites, and apps that offer online games, and to protect users from illegal betting and wagering online. The amendments also envisage the creation of self-regulatory bodies (SROs) that will register and certify permissible online games and resolve complaints through a grievance redressal mechanism.

In most regards, the amendments have garnered applause from the gaming industry for being an unusual example of a light-touch regulation and promoting the idea of a trustworthy self-regulating market. It is a rare example of an enabling legislation meant to promote regulatory certainty without much in the way of prescriptive mandates. But with the lack of prescription, also comes uncertainty, particularly in the matter of definitions involved in deciding what constitutes "online gaming", "betting”, or "gambling. While jurisprudence across the country is settled on the distinction being whether the game in question has an element of skill or an element of chance (with the latter legally prohibited), the Rules do not provide any assistance in making that distinction clear.

There is also a significant issue about the implementation of these regulations due to the fact that gambling is a state list subject under the Indian constitution; however, the discussion on federalism in this context is beyond the scope of this post.

This post’s focus, however, is the definition of “user harm” in the context of online gaming. As per the explanation to Rule 3(1)(b)(ii), “user harm” and “harm” mean any effect which is detrimental to a user or child, as the case may be.

Even at a cursory glance, this definition is unusually broad and vague, leaving much room for interpretation and discretion by the government and the SROs. For instance, would considerations of obscenity, defamation, hate speech, discrimination, harassment, cyberbullying, cyberstalking, phishing, hacking, identity theft, addiction, or compulsive behaviour etc be relevant while defining “harm” in the context of online gaming?

How will these terms be defined and measured? Who decides whether an online game is likely to incite any of these harms? What are the criteria and standards for such decisions? How will the users be informed and educated about these harms and their consequences?

Moreover, a definition of user harm that does not take into account the diversity and complexity of online gaming genres, formats, modes, and audiences would be woefully limited. Online gaming is not a monolithic phenomenon, but a rapidly evolving one, with different types of games catering to different players.

In games, the depiction of drug use, violence, and sexually explicit content is handled by certification and age-rating systems like ESRB and PEGI in the US and the UK respectively, with generally consistent decision-making. In the case of India, the Rules mention the objective of tackling content-related concerns in terms of depiction of violent or inappropriate content. However, Rules 4A(8) and 4C have imposed an obligation on the SRO to ensure that the verification process to determine a game’s permissibility be based on a self-devised framework which assesses whether an online game contains adequate safeguards against user harm. The only considerations to be used while formulating said framework, are “self harm and psychological harm”, which do not do much to circumscribe our definitional woes.

The idea of the SROs to also act as a classification and age-rating body is a possible step in the right direction assuming that multiple SROs will not create conflicting frameworks for verification. While India’s approach may end up as a beefed-up version of the US and the UK (with legal liabilities on the online gaming intermediaries, and direct oversight of the Union Government etc.) , the case of Australia’s National Classification Code should serve as a warning of the kind of distortions that can be created in a regulatory regime when overbroad concepts are used to define what constitutes “harm” to the player. Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification, bound by their legislative regime, can reject certification for a game if its depiction of sex and drug use is potentially portrayed “positively”. Because age-ratings and classifications directly impact the commercial success of games (as well as movies, which is usually used as a counterpoint against controversial classification systems which do not keep up with the changing nature of multimedia consumption), the Indian gaming market can potentially find themselves reworking key aspects of their games just to be able to get them onto the market. It is a costly endeavour to say the least.

As all these teething questions abound, one only hopes that a consistent framework is proposed to guide interpretations regarding the ambit of "user harm" before dispute redressal and adjudication processes inevitably commence in the future.

Antariksh Matters : China’s in a Hurry to Get to the Moon

— Aditya Ramanathan

China has announced an official deadline of 2030 for landing humans on the lunar surface. On Monday, Lin Xiqiang, the deputy head of the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said the mission to put humans on the Moon was underway and would include a programme of research during short visits. 

Lin’s announcement confirms a public comment in April by Wu Weiren, a scientist with China’s lunar exploration programme, who said putting humans on the Moon by 2030 was “not a problem”. 

China has been steadily developing its crewed lunar programme. In 2022, it unveiled a model of a 90-metre-long moon rocket scheduled to undergo a flight test in 2027. Earlier in 2019, a promotional video showed off what appeared to be a crewed vehicle for deep space travel being developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST). 

China’s ongoing pursuit of sustained human presence in low Earth orbit will contribute to its ability to send people to the Moon. Lin’s official confirmation came at a press conference in which he also presented the new three-person crew for the Tiangong space station, which will launch into orbit this week, replacing three others who have been inhabiting the space station for six months. The experience with Tiangong will especially come in handy if China manages to proceed to the next stage of its lunar project: setting up a permanent base on the Moon. 

Lunar Living

In 2021, China and Russia entered into an agreement to establish a permanent presence on the Moon. Eventually dubbed International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), the project was meant to be a direct counterpart to the United States’ Artemis programme, which, as of this writing, still intends to return humans to the Moon by 2025 and eventually set up a permanent presence on the lunar surface and in orbit.

In April, Wu publicly discussed a multi-stage plan for the ILRS up to 2050. This would include uncrewed missions and the setting up of a “basic version” that will be followed by a “full version” put together by 2040. Other stages include setting up a nuclear power source and research infrastructure. As with Artemis, China plans to support all this by putting a large constellation of satellites into lunar orbit for position navigation and timing (PNT), relay communications to the dark side of the Moon, and remote sensing. 

Earthly Constraints

ILRS may have begun as a Russia-China collaboration, but since the outbreak of the war with Ukraine, Russia has been conspicuous by its absence from recent Chinese statements. Instead, China has focused on its own plans and has sought other foreign partners for its upcoming Chang’e uncrewed missions to the Moon. 

China’s lunar ambitions are also evidently fuelled by its rivalry with the United States. However, China does not have the option of blending competition with a bit of cooperation. In 2011, the US introduced the so-called ‘Wolf Amendment’, which effectively bans US government funding to be used in cooperation with any Chinese entity without clearance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). While this is not technically an outright ban on space collaboration with China, its effect is much the same. 

Indeed, it seems clear that NASA is determined to keep away from China. NASA’s administrator Bill Nelson has made alarmist remarks about China appropriating lunar territory, presumably to bolster support for the Artemis programme. However, if China and the US are engaged in a space race to the Moon, it is a relatively muted affair at the moment. Top politicians have not expended political capital on the issue, and space agencies have not seen an explosion in their budgets. The lunar ambitions of great powers will continue to be subject to Earthly constraints like economic downturns, wars, stubborn technological challenges, and myriad other pressing issues. 

Our Reading Menu

[Podcast] - A Day in the Life of a Cop, a new limited series on 'policing' on All Things Policy, by Shrikrishna Upadhyay and Javeed Ahmed.

[Op-ed] Rs 2,000 Note Withdrawal: No demonetisation redux but RBI could have done it better, by Anupam Manur.

[Report] Defense Primer: U.S. Policy on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems, by Kelly M. Sayler.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Biopolitik: The Power of Four: Biomanufacturing and the Quad

— Saurabh Todi

A biological revolution is underway in global manufacturing. Products produced from genetic engineering and biomanufacturing techniques are replacing many chemical, industrial and farm-based products. According to a 2020 McKinsey report, the substitution of chemical products with biological alternatives through modern biotechnology has the potential to produce up to 60 per cent of the physical inputs required by the global economy. Similar modern biotechnology efforts are underway for milk, meat, pharmaceuticals, oils and numerous other industries. Individually, these industries are worth many billions or trillions of dollars. Combined, they make biotechnology one of the most economically lucrative emerging technologies.

However, beyond the obvious economic value, there is significant strategic and social value in modern biotechnologies. The products produced by modern biotechnology are or will be essential for producing food, energy, and health management. Those that control the IP and supply chains will potentially control key determinants of society’s technological progress. There are also numerous potential military applications for biotechnology that range from food security to new, lightweight polymers to understanding the potential of highly effective biological weapons (which are banned under international law).

Given the immense economic and strategic importance of these technologies, it is vital that countries do not place themselves in a vulnerable position. The Quad has sought to address this potential vulnerability by establishing a Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group that will monitor trends in critical and emerging technologies, such as synthetic biology, genome sequencing, and biomanufacturing, and also identify opportunities for cooperation within Quad.

China plans to establish its dominance in biomanufacturing as well. In a Chinese government document on building the bioeconomy, a central theme was biomanufacturing at scale, including plastics, oils and agri-food technology. The ASPI critical technology tracker shows that academics in China publish more of the top 10% of most-cited academic papers for biomanufacturing than in any other country. Given China’s track record in establishing a lead in several emerging technologies, There’s good reason to believe China will build its biomanufacturing base faster than its competitors.

To capitalise on the economic potential of the biomanufacturing industry and address potential supply chain vulnerabilities, we recommended that Quad countries establish a biomanufacturing hub in India. The proposed Quad-led hub would invest in three main areas: strengthening physical infrastructure, bolstering workforce capabilities, and identifying opportunities for collaboration.

Researchers at the Takshashila Institution, Saurabh Todi and Shambhavi Naik, along with researchers at Australian National University, Dirk van der Kley and Daniel Pavlich, have explored this idea in detail in a recently published as a Discussion Document. The recommendation was published as op-eds in publications like ASPI Strategist.

Matsyanyaaya: Preparing for the quantum leap

— Rijesh Panicker

The National Mission for Quantum Technologies and Applications (NM-QTA) seeks to strengthen India’s research and development ecosystem in various quantum technologies like quantum communications, quantum computing, quantum sensing and quantum materials. It will also look to build 50-100 qubit quantum computers within the next 5-8 years.

With an outlay of ₹6,000 crores over the next eight years, NM-QTA represents a significant step forward from the Quantum Enabled Science and Technology (QueST) research program, funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) for ₹80 crore.

India has also sought international collaboration in this area. Among these is a partnership between the National Science Foundation in the US and Indian science agencies as part of the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) in several areas, including quantum technologies, an Indo-US quantum coordination mechanism to facilitate research and collaboration, and an agreement with Finland, which includes setting up virtual quantum centres at three institutes in collaboration with Finnish academia.

Three key factors explain this acceleration in investment in quantum technologies.

First, quantum technologies are disruptive in their positive and negative impact. Quantum computers use quantum bits (qubits) to perform calculations based on quantum mechanical principles, allowing them to solve certain problems exponentially faster than traditional computers, which use classical bits (0 or 1) for computation. This is because qubits can exist in multiple states simultaneously (both 0 and 1), enabling quantum computers to perform many calculations at once, whereas classical bits can only exist in one state at a time. In areas such as material sciences and chemistry, quantum computers could prove groundbreaking, helping develop new and innovative molecules and materials at a rate faster than ever. Similarly, quantum secure communications significantly improve our cyber security and threat-detection capabilities. 

Conversely, quantum computers above a certain size (measured in qubits) can easily break the encryption algorithms that secure most of our data today. Any actor – either state or non-state – that captures financial, military and infrastructure-related data critical to our national interest only needs to hold onto it until quantum computers are of a certain capability to be able to decrypt the data. This leaves us vulnerable to the inevitable progress in quantum computing.

The second factor is the global geopolitical environment. China and the US are battling for strategic advantage, especially in emerging technologies. Countries will protect their core technology, push for their standards and maintain close control over their allied supply chains. In quantum, for example, China has chosen to push its path forward. Similarly, India should not simply depend on its allies. In the 1990s, Russia was not allowed to fully transfer cryogenic engine technology to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) due to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) that existed. Ultimately, ISRO developed its own indigenous cryogenic engine in 2014. We must avoid something similar happening to us in the quantum space.

We can see this playing out in the area of quantum communications, where countries like China, Japan, and South Korea have demonstrated their own quantum secure communication networks. The standards for quantum communications are still being developed, and whoever influences these standards gains an advantage. 

In the quantum computing space, there are multiple methods to build a quantum computing core, each with its strengths and weaknesses. No one technology has a clear path to a viable, large-scale quantum computer. The winner of this race will undoubtedly have a long-term advantage over its competitors. 

A third reason to consider is our relative weakness in high-tech research and development (R&D). India has spent about 0.7% of its GDP on R&D annually over the last decade. In particular, the government accounts for over 55% of all R&D investments in India. In contrast, China spends about 2.1% and the US 3% of GDP on research, both with high levels of private sector participation. Compare the nearly $1.2 billion investment in quantum computing just in 2022 by the private sector in the US with the National Quantum Mission (NM-QTA) $730 million budget over the next eight years. 

A recent study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) comparing quantum investments across countries shows India lagging the US and China, both in terms of trained manpower and in terms of research conducted (as measured by highly cited papers; probably a biased metric for quality of research, but a metric nonetheless).

We must choose where to be “Atmanirbhar” and where we want to depend on others. India must decide where to wait and watch and where to go now. In some areas, like quantum communications, we have already decided to go, which is the right move.

As a matter of good strategy, India must identify those parts of the quantum technology space where we need to maintain technological independence and diversity. A considered allocation of resources to build infrastructure, fund and encourage research, train manpower, and participate in and influence global standards is a great path forward.

Antariksh Matters: China’s secretive space plane

— Aditya Ramanathan

China’s enigmatic space plane landed horizontally on Earth on May 8 after 276 days in orbit, according to the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

The uncrewed reusable vehicle was launched in August 2022 on a Long March 2F rocket. This was the second such mission involving a reusable vehicle. In September 2020, a reusable craft was put into orbit for just two days, during which time it deployed two small objects into orbit. 

The recently concluded mission also involved putting a payload into orbit. On October 31, 2022, about three months after its launch, the craft deployed an object that may have been a small companion satellite meant to monitor the craft. Chinese crewed craft have released similar monitoring satellites in the past.

The space situational awareness company Leolabs tracked the Chinese craft and has concluded that it docked with an ‘Object J’ (most likely the same monitoring satellite) two or three times. Leolabs also concluded that the space plane had an independent capacity to manoeuvre and propel itself while in orbit.

Everyone Likes Spaceplanes

States have been experimenting with space planes for decades. The erstwhile US Space Shuttle was the most prominent example of a reusable crewed vehicle that was launched vertically and landed horizontally.

However, most ongoing space plane programmes are uncrewed, and some have explicit military roles. For instance, Boeing is developing the uncrewed X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), which is operated by the US Space Force. The X-37B is already considerably ahead of China’s space plane programme, having completed six missions, the last of which was in orbit for 908 days. Like China’s space planes, the X-37B is capable of placing objects in orbit, such as the experimental FalconSAT-8 for the US Air Force. 

Other countries have been looking to develop space planes of their own. India took a modest first step in this direction in April when it dropped a prototype 6.5 metre-long uncrewed space plane called the Reusable Launch Vehicle from a helicopter and landed it.

Private companies are also attempting to develop space planes of their own. The most prominent examples include Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser, which could include both crewed and uncrewed variants, as well as the Dawn Aerospace’s Mk-II Aurora. While these projects are still in their early stages, there could be strong commercial incentives for investing in them.

What Are They Good For?

The most obvious reason to invest in space planes is to reduce the cost of access to space: the dream of reusable craft being able to insert payloads into orbit quickly and cheaply is an old one. This is the stated reason for India’s own RLV and the driving force for space plane development by private companies. 

The direct military utility of space planes is unclear at this stage. The US X-37B is operated by the Space Delta 9 unit of the Space Force, which is, among other things, responsible for ‘orbital warfare’. It is possible that future space planes could deploy a range of small payloads that can conduct space situational awareness (SSA) missions, carry out rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), or possibly use directed energy to dazzle or blind other orbital craft. However, the most likely military utility for space planes today is their ability to act as test beds to other technologies, such as autonomous manoeuvring in space and hypersonic capabilities. For now, at least, space planes are not harbingers of a new era of space warfare.

Our Reading Menu

[Report] China-Russia Space Cooperation: The Strategic, Military, Diplomatic, and Economic Implications of a Growing Relationship.

[Op-ed] Globalising India's DPI for a Common Digital Future by Bharath Reddy and Saurabh Todi.

[Blog] This time, it feels different by Kailash Nadh.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Cyberpolitik: AI and Crime Prevention: Is it a force multiplier?

— Satya Sahu

Crime prevention is based on the idea that crime can be reduced or eliminated by modifying the factors that influence its occurrence or consequences. We can classify “prevention” into three main types: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary prevention addresses the root causes of crime or deters potential offenders before they commit a crime. Secondary prevention aims to intervene with at-risk groups or individuals to prevent them from becoming involved in crime. Finally, tertiary prevention efforts seek to rehabilitate or punish offenders to prevent them from reoffending. (This, however, is beyond the scope of today’s discussion.)

Flipping the coin, we notice that policing is based on the idea that law enforcement and public order can be maintained by enforcing the law and responding to crimes or incidents. Policing also lends itself to being classified into two main types: reactive and proactive. Reactive policing responds to reported crimes or incidents after they occur. Proactive policing anticipates or prevents crimes or incidents before they occur. On the face of it, AI can help us prevent and fight crime by enhancing both types of crime prevention and policing.

AI can digest and analyse petabytes of data from disparate sources, such as social media, CCTV footage, sensors used in our Smart Cities™, and boring old digitised government records, to identify patterns, trends, and anomalies that can indicate potential criminal activity. For example, the police in Vancouver use predictive models to identify areas where robberies are expected to occur and then post officers to deter potential thieves or other criminals. Similarly, the police in Los Angeles use a system called PredPol that generates maps of hotspots where crimes are likely to happen based on past data. These systems can help the police allocate their resources more efficiently and effectively and reduce crime rates and response times.

When it comes to collecting and processing evidence, such as fingerprints, DNA, facial recognition, voice recognition, and digital forensics etc., we can look at the UK Home Office’s VALCRI, which uses AI to analyse large volumes of data from different sources, such as crime reports, witness statements, CCTV footage, and social media posts, to generate hypotheses and leads for investigators. For example, the police in India used ML-backed facial recognition technology to reunite thousands of missing children with their families. Moreover, AI can help the police in presenting evidence and arguments in court, such as using natural language processing to generate concise summaries or transcripts of testimonies or documents.

It could augment efforts to monitor and evaluate police performance and conduct, such as using dashcams, bodycams, or drones to record their interactions with the public and/or suspects. For example, the police in New Orleans developed a program called EPIC that uses AI to analyse video footage from bodycams to identify instances of misconduct or excessive force by officers. It can also help the police in engaging with the public and building trust and confidence, such as using chatbots or social media platforms to communicate with citizens and provide critical information services, hopefully unlike the chatbot from my bank’s beleaguered website.

However, all this has enormous implications for the jurisprudential underpinnings of crime prevention and policing. One such significance arises when AI itself can change the nature and scope of crime and criminality. AI can enable new forms of crime that exploit its capabilities and vulnerabilities, such as cyberattacks, biometric spoofing, deepfakes, autonomous weapons, or social engineering. Unlike their current-crime counterparts, leveraging AI allows these future crimes to be more sophisticated, scalable and anonymous than conventional ones. Therefore, the legal and ethical frameworks that govern our efforts to control such crimes must, therefore, must evolve to address these new crimes. It is a foregone conclusion that without involving AI at the forefront of these efforts, it will be impossible to counter AI-enabled crimes themselves. Hence the concomitant need to update the legal and ethical norms guiding society’s conceptions of policing and crime prevention.

Yet another implication is that AI also transforms the roles and responsibilities of police officers and other actors involved in crime prevention or response. As the examples show, AI can augment or automate some of the tasks that police officers perform, such as data collection, analysis, or evidence processing. AI can also assist or replace some of the decisions that police officers make, such as risk assessment, resource allocation, or intervention selection. To ensure that the concerns of effectiveness and responsibility surrounding Mx. Robo-Cop are adequately balanced, clear and consistent standards and regulations for police and state actors must be established side-by-side with the development and deployment of such systems. 

This is not to say that we need to disavow the use of AI in the field of policing and crime prevention. The potential and limitations of AI and the skills and knowledge to use it effectively and responsibly make it so versatile and terrifying. However, it is still a tool to be wielded by the legitimate wielder of the state’s punitive power: the police.

The use of AI in identifying young people who are vulnerable to gang exploitation or violence and mounting efforts to prevent them from becoming involved in crime is already a burning question in the UK. This recognises that leveraging AI to provide better targeted and tailored state support and services to at-risk groups or individuals, is valuable. On the face of it, any enhancements to their state’s performance, efficiency, and accountability in this regard will be applauded. But given what we know about the pitfalls surrounding AI, the opposite also holds: violating the privacy, dignity, or rights of individuals or communities will reduce the trust and legitimacy that is essential for state actors and the police to be able to police under the social contract.

Referring back to my previous post here, we know that AI can create or exacerbate the digital divide or systemic social inequalities among different groups or individuals. The conversation about the use of AI in a field where the slightest deviation from the limited scope of policing is undesirable must discuss the processes involved as well as the outcomes exacted upon the population being policed. This indicates the need to ensure that AI is used in a way that respects and protects the interests and values of individuals or communities. AI is a powerful tool that can help us understand the causes of, prevent, and reduce crime. Still, it is not a substitute for human judgment or responsibility. It is not merely a technology but also a socio-cultural phenomenon to be embraced with a healthy mixture of curiosity and caution. 

(I use the term ‘AI’ to include machine learning, Neural Language Processing, etc., here for brevity.)

Matsyanyaaya: Why a local Indian rickshaw app should worry Big Tech

— Shailesh Chitnis

Digital platforms, such as Google and Facebook for advertising and Amazon for e-commerce, derive their power by bringing sellers and buyers together in one place. Over time, "network effects" ensure that these platforms achieve monopoly power in the market. Regulators have tried different methods to limit the reach of these platforms. The European Union prefers a rule-based approach to reining in these companies, while the United States M+A policy is focused on preventing market concentration.

Neither has worked particularly well.

Namma Yatri, a small ride-hailing app in Bangalore, may point in another direction. Since its launch last November, the app lists almost a third of the city's 150,000-odd rickshaw drivers on its network and routes 40% of all rickshaw rides. It is now a viable competitor to Ola and Uber, the dominant apps.

Namma Yatri is unique in that it is entirely funded and run by the community. The app is based on the open-source platform Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), which is a non-profit supported by the Indian government. A private company, Juspay Technologies create the app, and there is no commission fee.

ONDC's concept is to create a common platform where buyers and sellers can easily transact. This is essentially a technological solution that deconstructs a marketplace (see figure below). By abstracting the platform from supply and demand, ONDC seeks to remove some of the barriers of large digital platforms.

ONDC’s approach is not unique. Last week, Bluesky, a new social media platform backed by Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey, started inviting users to its Twitter-like platform. What makes it different is that the social network is built on a decentralized system. This would allow, in theory, users from multiple social networks, each with its own systems of curation and moderation to interact.

A technology-driven solution that unbundles a marketplace into different pieces may spur more competition. And given India’s success with pushing large-scale digital infrastructure projects, entrenched platforms should pay attention.

Though it’s early days for these platforms, there are a few questions, particularly around their business model.

- Can a community-supported model work for India when our open-source culture isn’t that well-developed?

- If private companies are developing and maintaining applications on the platform, what are the monetization models?

But perhaps, the most important question is about government intervention. With ONDC, if the government actively participates in defining the protocol and in advocating its use, does that influence innovation and natural market evolution?

Antariksh Matters: Challenges for the Indian private space sector

— Pranav R Satyanath

The approval of the new space policy by the Union Cabinet ushers in a new era for the space sector in India. The long-awaited reform, reflected in an 11-page document, details the activities that the commercial space sector can undertake and delineates the roles of three key government agencies: Indian National Space Promotion & Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and the Department of Space (DoS). We have covered the merits and shortcomings of the policy in a Takshashila blog. 

The enthusiasm for the growth of the private space sector is indeed merited, as private entities were largely denied these opportunities in the past. However, there also exists a host of challenges that the Indian private space sector will face in the future. Some of these challenges are rooted in the historical evolution of the space sector in India, while others are created by the structure of market competition in the space sector. To understand the challenges, we must first briefly analyse how the private space sector has evolved to its present state in India.

Evolution of India’s private space sector

Private sector participation in India’s space sector has historically been sparse. This was because space activities were the state’s monopoly for several decades, and ISRO had achieved several feats, such as developing indigenous launch vehicles with limited resources. Indeed, since space was a high-risk and relatively low-reward sector, private entities stayed away from undertaking entire space projects and instead played the role of contractors and subcontractors for manufacturing satellite and launch vehicle components.

Given ISRO’s monopoly over space activities, a regulatory mechanism to oversee national space activities was seen as unnecessary, even after commercial space activities became a viable undertaking for the private sector. ISRO became the de-facto regulator for the private sector as it was the only route through which the private sector could participate in space activities. The absence of a set regulatory framework, therefore, disincentivised major private sector participation.

This affected the evolution of the private sector in three ways. First, due to the large capital required to establish  manufacturing facilities for the space sector, the task of taking the role of suppliers fell on the traditional heavy industries who had large resources at their disposal. Second, since the industries largely followed ISRO’s guidelines on design and manufacturing, they had very little incentives to innovate on their own. Finally, an ancillary support industry or the space sector did not flourish as ISRO imported or manufactured key components in-horse. Put together, these factors would go on to place several structural constraints on India’s private space sector.     

The challenges for India’s private space sector

With clarity on the regulatory framework, the private space sector is free to pursue activities in both the Upstream sector (which includes satellite manufacturing and launch services) and the Downstream sector (Ground Segment and satellite services). However, the industry must overcome several hurdles before achieving a high degree of competitiveness. This essay focuses on two challenges that are discussed less frequently.

Support from the government

The miniaturisation of satellites has given rise to a new market for satellite service providers, which has, in turn, spurred the demand for launch vehicles. Despite the boom in demand, the private space sector continues to rely on significant government funding to stay in business. For the NewSpace industry, support from the government comes in the form of purchasing services or directly funding the research and development of new technologies. 

Consider the example of the launch industry in the United States. Traditionally the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Air Force (USAF) purchased services from the established space and missile industry through a cost-plus arrangement. The rise of the private space launch market introduced a new fixed-cost model, where NASA and USAF paid for launches on a need basis. Furthermore, NASA has taken significant steps to involve the private industry in human spaceflight, as the national space agency has shaped itself to undertake high-risk exploration missions. The military sector has also taken major steps to integrate the private industry into the procurement ecosystem, making the government a major source of funding for the private space sector.

Such a model of government funding does not exist in India. According to the new space policy, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), an entity under the DoS, will take responsibility for operating launch vehicles developed by ISRO. Further, ISRO has also stated that it will develop a new reusable launch vehicle to replace the PSLV. There is no indication that either the DOS or the armed forces will fund private launch providers for launch services or develop new launchers.

Due to the long absence of a commercial space policy, India’s private space industry is in its nascent stages. As the industry matures, it will face stiff competition from well-established international players. In this regard, the Union government must be cognizant of the fact that international competitors have some level of backing from foreign governments, which skews their advantage in the international market. 

Access to key technologies

The second major challenge to Indian companies arises from the lack of a robust supply ecosystem in India. As mentioned earlier, the evolution of India’s space sector led to a condition where a supporting industry for the space sector had limited incentives to flourish into its full potential. Decades later, a new generation of space entrepreneurs began to rely on foreign suppliers for key components and technologies as they could not find equivalent suppliers domestically. The lack of a domestic space ecosystem has led several space entrepreneurs to shift their establishments to foreign countries, where access to technology, talent and support systems was easier.

Indeed, the NewSpace ecosystem will eventually gain competence as the domestic industry begins to mature and the demand for domestically-manufactured sensors, optics, testing equipment and software increases. During the transition period, however, space startups will continue to rely on foreign suppliers. The process of procuring foreign components is often a roadblock due to the export control regime on dual-use technologies.

Charging forward

While the new policy achieves high marks in several key areas, the transformation of India’s space sector is far from complete. To achieve the vision of augmenting India’s capabilities through the commercial space sector, India needs a  National Space Strategy which charts a clear path forward for both civilian and military activities. Such a strategy must lay down the objectives for India’s space programme and seamlessly incorporate the interests of the commercial space sector into the national strategy.

Our Reading Menu

[Book] Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral by Ben Smith

[Report] Mapping Biosafety Level-3 Laboratories by Publications by Caroline Schuerger, Sara Abdulla and Anna Puglisi

[Op-ed] CPC’s tryst with private regulatory interventionism by Anushka Saxena

[Podcast] Indian Space Policy - 2023 with Aditya Ramanathan and Narayan Prasad

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Cyberpolitik: The Gell-mann “AI”mnesiac Effect

— Satya Sahu

Here are two screenshots of a hastily written prompt to which ChatGPT dutifully responded almost immediately.

As I read the responses to my prompts, I was painfully aware of the fact that the second passage could very plausibly be attached alongside a doctored image of a scientist holding up a processor die and forwarded countless times on Whatsapp by thousands of my fellow citizens, all overjoyed at the prospect of India finally having become a semiconductor nation. These persuasively written passages contain no usual hallmarks of a shoddy copypasta-like questionable grammar and syntactical errors. The issue evident to anybody familiar with the global semiconductor value chain is that unless the reader of these passages also knows that efforts to produce an indigenous x86 processor are non-existent, they would not be able to discern the falsehood.

While AI can generate realistic and useful content for entertainment, education, research, and communication, it can also produce and disseminate misinformation, propaganda, and fake news. Misinformation is false or inaccurate information that is deliberately or unintentionally spread to influence people’s beliefs, attitudes, or behaviours. Misinformation can have serious negative impacts on individuals and society, such as eroding trust, polarizing opinions, undermining democracy, and endangering public health and safety.

One of the challenges of combating misinformation is that people are often vulnerable to cognitive biases that impair their ability to evaluate the credibility and accuracy of information. One such bias is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect, coined by Michael Crichton and named after the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann. The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect describes the phenomenon of an expert believing news articles on topics outside of their field of expertise even after acknowledging that articles written in the same publication that are within the expert’s field of expertise are error-ridden and full of misunderstanding. For example, a physicist may read an article on physics in a newspaper and find it full of errors and misconceptions but then turn the page and read an article on politics or economics and accept it as factual and reliable.

The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect illustrates how people tend to forget or ignore their prior knowledge and experience when they encounter new information that is presented by a seemingly authoritative source. This effect can be exploited by AI-generated misinformation, which can mimic the style and tone of reputable media outlets and create convincing content that appeals to people’s emotions, biases, and expectations. AI-generated misinformation can also leverage social media platforms and networks to amplify its reach and influence by exploiting algorithms that favour sensationalism, novelty, and popularity over quality, accuracy, and relevance.

Another challenge in combating misinformation is that large language models (LLMs), the main technology behind AI-generated content, are biased and incomplete. LLMs are trained on massive amounts of text data collected from the internet, which reflect the biases and gaps present in society and culture. LLMs learn to reproduce and amplify these biases and gaps in their outputs, which can lead to harmful and misleading content. One type of bias that LLMs can perpetuate is second-order bias, which is the bias that arises from the way data is organized, categorized, and represented. Second-order bias can affect how LLMs understand and generate information, such as classifying entities, assigning attributes, inferring relationships, and constructing narratives. These can also affect how LLMs interact with users, such as how they respond to queries, provide feedback, and adapt to preferences.

Second-order bias can make misinformation more problematic at scale because it can affect not only the content but also the context and purpose of information. For example, it can influence how LLMs frame and filter information to suit different audiences and agendas, as well as manipulate and persuade users to accept or reject information based on their emotions, biases, and expectations. It can also influence how LLMs conceal or reveal their sources and intentions to users.

All of this is to say that the effort associated with generating false WhatsApp forwards like the example above (but far less benign!) for hundreds of thousands of people at a time is now rendered minuscule. Obviously, the public needs to develop critical thinking and media literacy skills to discern truth from falsehoods on a rapid-fire basis, but the consensus amongst researchers is that there is no silver bullet to this problem.

One can only hope that the human cost of developing AI-fuelled output that is difficult to distinguish from human creative output makes us pause and take stock of the situation. It may, however, be too late.

Matsyanyaaya: Cooperating to Communicate

— Bharath Reddy

The telecommunications network of a country qualifies as critical infrastructure. With the increasing adoption of 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), almost everything we do will rely on this infrastructure. The recently signed India and US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) recognises next-generation telecommunications as one of the collaboration domains. 

Within this domain, iCET identifies the following two areas for collaboration:

* “Launching a public-private dialogue on telecommunications and regulations.”

* “Advancing cooperation on research and development in 5G and 6G, facilitating deployment and adoption of Open RAN in India, and fostering global economies of scale within the sector.”

These welcome developments aim to address shared challenges for both India and US.

The telecom equipment industry has high entry barriers and is dominated by a handful of vendors. The top four vendors - Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and ZTE - share around 85% of the Radio Access Network (RAN) market share. Sanctions and bans imposed against Huawei and ZTE further limit vendor choice. The lack of competition in the market could lead to a decline in innovation, an increase in prices and the risk of disrupted supply chains.

Several applications necessary for our daily life, such as communications, autonomous vehicles, and smart cities, require a secure and reliable telecommunication infrastructure. The choice of vendors is critical. It’s no wonder many states have implemented sanctions against Huawei, recognising it as a potential threat to national security. The telecommunications giant has close ties to the Chinese state. Given the geopolitical climate, relying on an adversary to maintain and upgradation of critical infrastructure is not an option. 

The companies with the largest RAN market share are full-stack vendors that offer tightly integrated solutions. Open RAN promises to reduce entry barriers by disaggregating the RAN ecosystem. This allows smaller vendors to enter the market by building interoperable and modular components. However, this comes with the risk of complexities in system integration. The responsibility of a reliable and secure system will shift from a single vendor to system integrators and regulators. Given this market dynamic, system integrators and regulators need to develop the skills and capacity to integrate and validate the robustness of such systems.

Chinese companies dominate in 5G/6G standard development organisations such as the 3GPP. The disaggregation caused by adopting Open RAN should enable more innovation and broader participation in standards development. Open RAN adoption is progressing slowly, but it can play a more significant role in 6G. Cooperation between India and US in research and development in 5G, 6G and Open RAN will stand both countries in good stead. It will help build resilient supply chains and technical competence in these critical technologies. 

Antariksh Matters: A vehicle worth reusing

— Pranav R Satyanath

On April 2nd, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) conducted an autonomous landing test of the Reusable Launch Vehicle — a spacecraft that looks a lot like an uncrewed spaceplane. The test was indeed unique as the RLV was carried to an altitude of 4.5 km by a helicopter, after which the RLV made an autonomous landing using on-board computers and navigation receivers.

The existence of the vehicle is no secret. The RLV Test Demonstrator has been in development since 2012. In 2016, ISRO mounted the test vehicle on a sounding rocket and carried out the first hypersonic flight experiment. Since then, the RLV has undergone several experiments to test the flight and landing characteristics of the vehicle. Since the vehicle’s inception, ISRO has envisioned the RLV to be a test bed for a launch vehicle that could become fully operational by 2030. Of course, the RLV is more akin to the space shuttle than the reusable rockets used by SpaceX or Blue Origin. The space shuttle, for its part, was far more expensive than what the National Aeronautics and Space Administration first calculated.

So the question remains: will the RLV suffer the same fate? The answer? No. This is because the ISRO’s space plane design is likely to be far smaller and more nimble than the Space Shuttle (the latter was designed to carry both heavy cargo and astronauts). Concepts for space planes have existed since the 1960s, most prominent of which was the Boeing X-20 Dyna-SOAR, which never made it past early testing. The RLV could follow the X-20 style lineage, which inspired space planes like the European Space Agency’s HERMES spacecraft and the DreamChaser mini space shuttle by the private company, Sierra Space. India’s space shuttle, therefore, could eventually develop into a spacecraft that will be mounted on top of the LVM-III rocket and carry astronauts into space.

Those who watch space activities closely will also recognise that the RLV looks rather similar to the Boeing X-37B spaceplane, whose purpose of exitance seems to be shrouded in secrecy. Indeed, as I have written in a previous edition of Technopolitik, the X-37B is far less sinister than it appears. While the spacecraft is used for military purposes, its capabilities are limited to reconnaissance and small satellite deployment.

It would not come as a surprise if the RLV is repurposed for military utility. After all, ISRO’s tweets mention that the test was developed along wide the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Air Force. Having a spaceplane similar to the X-37B will give India’s military space operators the ability to perform rendezvous and proximity operations, including the capability to deploy micro satellite for inspections.

Our Reading Menu

[Book] Algorithmic Modernity: Mechanizing Thought and Action, 1500-2000, edited by Morgan G. Ames and Massimo Mazzotti.

[Article] Engines of power: Electricity, AI, and general-purpose, military transformations by Jeffrey Ding and Allan Dafoe.

[Op-ed] The TikTok Debate Should Start With Reciprocity; Everything Else Is Secondary by David Moschella.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

A new discussion document authored by Shailesh Chitnis provides a pragmatic assessment of India’s capabilities in Artificial Intelligence (AI) today. It proposes one bold idea which, if properly executed, has the potential to catapult the country into a dominant position in the AI race. But why another document about AI strategy for India? The expert from the document is provided below.

Most reports on AI in India follow a predictable pattern. First, they fuss over the potential of AI to alter every aspect of society and the economy. Next, they present eye-watering numbers on the impact of AI on India’s economy. Finally, there’s a mild caution against missing out on this once-in-a-generation boom.

Left unsaid are the steps needed to get there. This is not such a report. It assumes that the reader is astute enough to know the transformational nature of AI. The reader also agrees that over time, this general-purpose technology will permeate every aspect of our lives. The extent of change depends on how successful we are in adopting this technology. But no one, this report hopes, needs to be convinced of the potential pay-off with AI. Instead, this short paper is focused on that space between strategy and outcome, namely execution. It deliberately takes a near-term – three to five years – view in its analysis, since the intent is to spur action.

The problem: Staying behind in the AI race

India is languishing at the bottom of the artificial intelligence (AI) leaderboard when compared with its G20 peers. Other than exporting our best brains, our contributions have been tiny. Even as the gap between the United States and China on one side, and everyone else on the other widens, India's policymakers, researchers, and business leaders have shown little urgency.

The first AI strategy document by the government was released in 2018, a year or so after China had released its detailed, target-linked AI plan. Five years later, India is still in the strategy and consultation phase, while China has left us behind.

We need to shift gears. Our research surveyed the state of AI in India and evaluated various policy options. While there are many recommendations that can be made, we prefer those that are immediate and agile.

Our big idea: BharatAI

AI is mainstream. And, as the preceding sections have demonstrated, India needs to catch up. Fast. Industry leaders can wait for guidance from the government on a roadmap, with defined milestones, ample funds, and coordinated action among industry, the public sector, and academia. But India is not China. Disruptive change will come from the private sector. One approach is to launch a privately funded research lab that works on foundational models for AI. We call this lab BharatAI.

This company, BharatAI, has the potential to become the hub of India's AI innovation ecosystem. Our initial estimate calls is for an investment of roughly $250 million over five years. But an unproven company that requires over $250 mn over five years with no defined product or revenue won’t be flush with investor cash. The mismatch between high upfront costs and a long horizon to recoup the investments, requires patient capital. Hence we propose a pooled investment approach. Similar to a venture capital (VC) fund, BharatAI’s investors will resemble limited partners (LPs) that park their money into this venture for a defined period, say 10 years. In return, they buy equity into the firm but are not involved in the company’s management.

Investors into this company can be of three types.

a. Strategic investment from India's large technology services companies

b. Venture capital funds

c. Private endowments

The company will also have two other backers who will be critical for its success: a platform partner and the government.

The company itself would focus on foundational AI problems with broad applicability. BharatAI should not attempt to develop end-to-end applications. It should instead provide tools through application programming interfaces (APIs) and open-source or licence its models.

A single company, however, can not alter India’s AI trajectory. But it can make a sizeable dent in our efforts to overcome our handicaps.

BharatAI can serve as a talent magnet for high-quality, high-demand engineers. A research lab that is closely tied to industry will also promote a culture of privately-led innovation. Finally, the Indian government is keen on expanding India stack – a set of open APIs and public digital goods – globally. Having an AI layer in the stack that offers countries an alternative to Big Tech capture will be a big benefit.

The full document can be found here: https://takshashila.org.in/research/rebooting-ai-india

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Cyberpolitik: A Recurring Payments Nightmare

— Bharath Reddy

Have you tried to make a recurring card payment to a foreign merchant only to find that your card gets declined? This is not an issue with the card being maxed out; most international payments using Indian credit or debit cards don’t work because merchants find it too cumbersome to comply with India-specific regulations. 

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mandated that from October 1st, 2021, for every recurring transaction below ₹5,000, banks must send a notification at least 24 hours before the renewal date. For amounts over ₹5,000, banks require a one-time password to authorise every transaction. The transaction mandate continues to be a recurring nightmare a year and a half since its introduction. While all recurring transactions faced severe disruptions initially, banks resolved the teething issues, and domestic payments worked after a few months. However, international payments continue to face issues. Publishing an impact assessment study and holding stakeholder consultations could have helped anticipate some problems beforehand. But since these mandates have already been implemented, some exemptions must be made so international payments can be functional again. 

Exiting from subscriptions is often deliberately complicated, and people often remain subscribed to services they don’t use. Free trial periods sometimes turn into indefinite subscriptions when users forget to cancel. RBI’s mandate aimed to help customers keep track of their subscriptions and exit unwanted ones. However, implementing these requirements requires coordination across the value chain of consumers, banks, mandate processing platforms, payment aggregators, and merchants. This coordination has not been seamless, and the fallout has caused much pain to businesses and consumers.

The most significant impact has been on businesses whose subscription revenue dried up. Despite the adequate notice given by the RBI, companies, both big and small, had little recourse. The list included OTT platforms, news organisations, non-profits, cloud service providers, and many others. The most significant impact has been on small bootstrapped businesses, which depend on revenue from subscriptions for their day-to-day operations. An additional burden for small subscription-based businesses is the effort that now goes towards manually processing the payments for what was once an automated process.

The mandate also creates hurdles for Indians who subscribe to global content and services. Most international merchants do not comply with RBI’s regulations. In response to queries about declined payments from Indian subscribers, The New York Times has recommended using a valid US credit card for payments! International merchants with a significant Indian customer base might now start supporting UPI. Some might have a mobile app through which one can subscribe, but that would attract a 30% markup due to the commissions charged by Apple or Google. However, for most others, customers have no option. Such hurdles in transacting with global merchants limit customer choice and hinder the ease of doing business. During the transition period, individuals and organisations had to deal with the overhead of manually paying for subscriptions. To date, this continues to be a burden for international subscriptions or for transactions above the threshold for which a one-time password is required for each renewal. The threshold, however, has subsequently been revised to ₹15,000, which has eased some of the burdens.

Before the mandate, there were problems with opting out of subscriptions in some situations, but it worked for most people. The impact of the mandates is unknown, but it has imposed concentrated costs on many businesses and consumers. Holding open consultations and inviting stakeholder comments can help anticipate most of these consequences. Publishing an impact assessment report also helps to build a consensus on the scope of the problem, the costs and benefits involved, and evaluate the impact of the policy.

Since this involves multiple stakeholders across the value chain, coordination has been a challenge. Lower-cost interventions, such as requiring banks to provide consumers with the ability to view and manage their subscriptions, might have also addressed the issue without as many disruptions. However, it’s worth considering whether this is the RBI’s responsibility. As Andy Mukherjee says, “lopsided buyer-seller relationships are a consumer protection problem. The job of a central bank is to provide a well-oiled payment system while safeguarding the integrity of the financial network from money launderers, terrorists, scammers, and hackers. Its targets should not include Netflix Inc. or the New York Times”.

It is unlikely that international merchants without a significantly large Indian customer base will take on the burden of complying with the mandates. It can get quite complex to comply with different regulatory requirements across geographies for the same payment service. Standards that have evolved might not be the most foolproof solution, but they are based on a consensus and ensure seamless interoperability. Given that these mandates have already been implemented across the country, RBI must create an exemption to ensure that international transactions can continue.

Biopolitik: Growing US-China Competition in Biotechnology

— Saurabh Todi

During his remarks at the Special Competitive Studies Project Global Emerging Technologies Summit in February 2021, US NSA Jake Sullivan expressed concern about the potential risks associated with biotechnology. He stated that while biotechnology holds great promise for advancing science and medicine, it also enables the possibility of accidental or intentional misuse. Sullivan further emphasised the need for the responsible and ethical development of biotechnology, including robust regulatory frameworks and international cooperation to prevent the proliferation of dangerous biotechnology. He also called for increased investment in research and development to ensure that the US remained at the forefront of biotechnology innovation.

These remarks indicated the seriousness with which the United States wants to maintain its biotechnology dominance vis-à-vis China. The US President, in September 2021, issued an Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation. The order aims to promote innovation and growth in the biotechnology and biomanufacturing industries. It established a national strategy for biotechnology research and development and initiatives to increase access to funding and support for small and disadvantaged businesses in the field. The order also aims to strengthen the biomanufacturing supply chain and promote collaboration between industry, government, and academic institutions to advance research and development in biotechnology. In September 2022, The United States government announced $2 billion in new investments and resources to advance its National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative. The investment includes $1.5 billion in funding for research and development, including establishing seven new biomanufacturing institutes across the US. The remaining $500 million will be used to create public-private partnerships to help support the development of new biotechnology products and solutions.

More recently, The US Department of Commerce added several units of Chinese genomics company BGI to its trade blacklist, citing concerns about their alleged ties to the Chinese military and its role in human rights abuses. The move follows earlier restrictions on BGI due to concerns about potential national security risks. The US government has expressed concerns about the Chinese government’s ability to access sensitive personal data collected by companies like BGI, as well as the potential for these companies to use their technologies for military or strategic purposes. The trade blacklist restricts US companies and organisations from exporting certain technologies to the listed companies without a licence from the US government.

These steps seem to align with this report in the New York Times, which indicated last year that the Biden administration is mulling further export controls that would clamp down on China’s ability to access cutting-edge technologies. Just as US-China competition in semiconductors got accelerated due to sanctions imposed by the US, there is a possibility that similar export-control restrictions could be imposed on high-tech biotechnology. The new biotech competition is something to keep an eye on.

Antariksh Matters: Setting your watch to Moon Time

— Aditya Ramanathan

Over the last couple of weeks, even casual followers of outer space news likely came across stories about scientists calling for a standard time for the Moon. 

Comments from Pietro Giordano, an engineer at the European Space Agency, prompted the most recent spurt of stories. However, discussions began in earnest at least a year ago. More importantly, the need to agree upon a time-keeping standard is implicit in the ambitious plans that states and private enterprises have outlined for the Moon. 

GPS for the Moon

The most ambitious plans for lunar exploration come from the United States, led by its Artemis Program, which looks to create a sustained human presence on the Moon and use it as a springboard for the exploration of Mars. We’ve discussed Artemis and the governance problems it creates in previous editions of this newsletter. What is clear, however, is that Artemis, as well as other more modest programmes outlined by the Europeans, Japan, China, and Russia, would benefit from a reliable lunar navigation, timing and communications infrastructure. In theory, at least, such a system would greatly increase our ability to dispatch crewed and uncrewed missions to the far side of the Moon and the lunar South Pole. It would also be crucial to the planned Lunar Gateway, a US-led project to establish a space station orbiting the Moon. Another project that would need lunar satellite-based support is the European Large Logistics Lander, which is meant to provide uncrewed logistics support to Artemis missions.  

The American space agency, NASA, is already pursuing what it calls the Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems or LCRNS. As the name suggests, LCRNS is an effort to put a smaller version of the Earth-bound GPS and communications satellites into lunar orbit. The ESA has a similar project of its own, dubbed Moonlight. Together they form what’s called LunaNet, which, according to NASA, is meant to offer a “set of standards that can enable an open, evolving, cooperative lunar communications and navigation architecture”.

Who Sets the Clocks?

Earth-bound Global Navigation Satellite Systems such as GPS, the European Galileo, China’s BeiDou, and India’s NavIC use onboard atomic clocks and radio signals to determine positions. While accurate timing is an inherent function of any such orbital navigation system, what’s undecided is how to set a time standard for the Moon. 

The obvious option is to link lunar time to Earth time. The International Space Station uses Universal Coordinated Time or UTC, essentially the same as Greenwich Mean Time or GMT and is maintained by the Bureau International de Poids et Mesures in Paris, with the help of an array of atomic clocks. The challenge with linking Moon time with Earth time is the effects of gravity. Because the Moon has only 16.6% of Earth’s gravity, it gains about 56 microseconds per Earth day. While such time discrepancies mean little in our daily lives, they can create complications for susceptible systems like satellite navigation. 

Ultimately, the business of keeping time on the Moon is both technical and political. Giordano’s call to create a time-keeping standard is evidence that there’s real value to the complexities and drudgery of multilateral lunar governance that draws in all major players, including China, Russia, and India. The US-led Artemis Program and Artemis Accords are no substitutes for formal laws, agreements, and treaties.

Our Reading Menu

[Book] Great Power Politics in the Fourth Industrial Revolution by Glenn Diesen

[Article] Defining the scope of AI regulations by Jonas Schuett

[Discussion Document] Strengthening research, promoting innovation through richer collaboration by Shambhavi Naik

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Matsyanyaaya: Why Apple's teething troubles in India matter

— Shailesh Chitnis

Last year, between April and December, Apple exported more than $2.5bn worth of iPhones from India. Shipments during those eight months were nearly double the previous fiscal year’s (April 2021 - March 2022) total. For India’s “Make in India” ambitions, those numbers are promising.

They are also tiny. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, in 2021, India produced 3 million iPhones. China produced 230 million units during the same period. The sizable difference between the two countries should give decoupling champions some pause.

(Source: Financial Times)

India, or any other country, cannot hope to dislodge the Chinese manufacturing Goliath anytime soon. Apple has a long history in China, going back to 2007. Unwinding its dependence will take time.

The product is also highly complex to assemble. Indian contractors are learning this the hard way. Last month, the Financial Times reported that only half of all components produced at a Tata casing factory passed quality checks. The 50% yield compares poorly with Apple’s goal of zero defects.

Some of these teething troubles are to be expected. Private players such as Tata and Foxconn, Apple’s assembly partner, have strong incentives to fix the problems. But it highlights the difficulty of building a complex manufacturing base in India.

Building an iPhone requires an entire supply chain dedicated to moving components from one contractor to another quickly. In China, private contractors and the local government worked together to win Apple orders at all costs. India must show the same agility between the private and public sectors.

Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation, and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

From: Duhigg, (Charles & Bradsher, Keith) “How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work”. The New York Times. 21 Jan 2012Investing in skilled labour is another imperative. During Apple’s early years in China, the company sent its product designers and engineers to the manufacturing units, sometimes for months at a time. It invested in building custom machinery for some of those contractors. Apple’s level of involvement with China had a transformative effect on the country’s manufacturing and technical capabilities. It spawned an entire network of companies that serviced Apple and its suppliers.

The Indian government wants Apple to make a quarter of all its phones here by 2025. Getting there will require business and public services to scale up in ways they haven’t before.

Apple’s investment in India is critical for both the company and the central government. The company has signalled its intention to wean off its China dependency by publicly embracing alternatives. For India, this is a test of its commitment to move “up the stack” in manufacturing. Failure here will have far-reaching consequences that go beyond a single device manufacturer.

Antariksh Matters: What’s the matter with commercial space stations?

— Pranav R Satyanath

Last week, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released two new documents which outline expectations for new commercial space stations. The documents outline NASA’s operational and technical expectations from the new commercial space stations and add a new layer of nuance to NASA’s plan for transitioning from operating on the International Space Station (ISS) and conducting all Low Earth Orbit (LEO) operations on commercial space stations.

The ISS is the largest human-built structure in the Earth’s orbit. It is also a really old structure, with the first module of the ISS being launched in 1998. The ISS is also a testament to international cooperation in space, as it brought together Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States to collaborate on a massive space project. The ISS has stood strong despite all the difficulties thrown at it — from geopolitical tensions to space debris. But it needs a replacement, perhaps before the end of this decade.

To Bolding Go Commercial

The retirement of the ISS was initially slated for 2024, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to extend its life through 2030. To replace the ISS, however, NASA has taken a bold route and decided to place all its bets on commercial entities. Although the US made Artemis its primary space policy goal, it still maintains an interest in LEO. Under the Commercial LEO Development (CLD) programme, NASA aims to commercialise LEO activities by opening the ISS for commercial activities and transitioning to research commercially-owned space stations by 2030.

Funding for new commercial space stations began in 2021 under the new CLD programme. NASA has funded three commercial entities to develop a private space station:

• Blue Origin (with Sierra Space) for the Orbital Reef space station: $130 million.

• Nanoracks (with Voyager Space Lockheed Martin) for the Starlab space station: $160 million.

• Northrop Grumman for a free-flyer space station: $125.6 million.

Further, NASA has also contracted Axiom Space for $140 million to develop and build a commercial module for the ISS over seven years.

These new commercial stations will be far smaller than the ISS. They will, perhaps, also cater to customers beyond national space agencies and cater to space tourists and high-paying nations that do not have their own astronaut programmes.

Getting Commercial Space Stations Going

So what are the challenges of getting commercial space stations up into space? First, it’s the funding. When the ISS first came into being, it had already cost a billion dollars in the 1980s to complete initial designs. Even today, the ISS consumes about a $ 3.1 billion dollars each year for operations and maintenance. Commercial space stations, meanwhile, will have to operate in a substantially together financial situation. A 2021 report by NASA’s Inspector General warned that the CLD programme vastly underestimates the costs of developing commercial space stations and that NASA has set itself the ambitious goal of transitioning to private space stations by 2028. 

Second, if NASA goes through with the CLD programme without international partners, it risks losing the long-standing international collaboration that it has built with the Canadian Space Agency, and European Space Agency and has held since the 1970s. In February 2022, for example, the head of ESA’s Washington office, Sylvie Espinasse, said that the idea of purchasing commercial services from American companies in the future would not be an entirely acceptable option for European partners.

Finally, commercial space stations may not meet all of NASA’s space research requirements. The newly released documents, for example, highlight that the agency wants to conduct anywhere between 130-250 experiments each year. It also estimates to transfer of about 5000 km of cargo to commercial stations each year. Of course, NASA will likely be given priority on board the new space stations when they enter service. However, the agency might not have the same level of control or flexibility when operating in a station built by companies that also want to profit from activities such as tourism.

The commercial space station programme we know today may turn out very differently five years later. After all, commercial space is new territory for everyone, including NASA.

Cyberpolitik: First steps to better regulate military AI

— Atharwa Sarnobat

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, in recent days, has seen a resurgence of interest mainly due to the popularity of natural language AIs such as ChatGPT, which has captivated our imaginations with responses that simulate human conversations somewhat realistically. Similarly, governments around the world concerned with the use of AI in warfare convened for REAIM or the Summit on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain conference held at The Hague in the Netherlands. The joint conference was organised by the Netherlands and Korean governments and focused on the impact and regulation of AI in warfare.

The conference was out together with three specific aspects in mind:

* Countries wanted to understand how AI played a role in warfare.

* Countries wanted to get a clear picture of AI’s current and potential future impact in warfare.

* Participants of the conference wanted to gain clarity on what the current legislative situation looked like and how that could be remedied by recommending newer legislation that could properly govern AI in warfare. 

The conference highlighted a few ideas and brought them to the forefront of the discourse around AI in warfare, such as the fact that autonomous weapons systems were great from a tactical perspective since they put fewer humans in the line of fire and they could potentially even take the jobs of peacekeepers in the future. It was also understood that while much of the world did not want “killer robots” on the battlefield, a complete ban could not be achieved since the genie could not be put back in the bottle, and these weapons systems were here to stay.

The conference also recognised that the public discourse over the regulation of AI in warfare was severely lagging and that had to be remedied if effective laws governing its use were to be drafted and enacted by governments. It also noted that AI in warfare was a technological domain where nations were engaged in a technological arms race to maintain or achieve their superiority in the global context. A few areas of concern were identified regarding the regulation of AI in warfare. One central area of concern highlighted was the postulation that using AI in warfare would lower the threshold for using force in a conflict or armed engagement. Another was the idea that humans would be required to monitor AI weapons systems such as loitering munitions since these systems had not reached a stage where they could make those decisions by themselves. 

Some participants recommended potential solutions, which proposed minimum acceptable levels for human control. The conference also recognised that old treaties on warfare needed to be updated to regulate military AI. Nations must also eliminate a high threshold approach to regulating military AI since these systems have broad use cases. Therefore, counties made the case that context-specific regulation was the only way forward. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Antariksh Matters #1: Can India and the US Head into Space Together?

— Aditya Ramanathan

India and the United States have taken a modest leap towards greater cooperation in space.

Last week, the two countries’ national security advisers, Ajit Doval and Jake Sullivan, kicked off the first meeting of the initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology or iCET. First set up in 2022, the focus of iCET was to enhance technological cooperation in defence as well as other sectors. A fact sheet released after the meeting outlined new avenues of India-US cooperation in defence technology, semiconductor supply chains, 5G, and space.  

We’ll be providing our take on some aspects of the iCET soon, but in this Technopolitik entry, I’ll focus on the bits about space.

Three steps outlined in the factsheet stand out. One, the two sides have agreed to train an Indian at the NASA Johnson Space Center, the main facility for training American astronauts. Two, both countries have also agreed to figure out how Indian companies can participate in NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme. Three, the factsheet outlines initiatives to increase commercial space cooperation and interaction between academics and experts. 

Let’s start with human spaceflight. On India’s Independence Day in 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Indians would be launched into space on an indigenous mission in 2022 named Gaganyaan. That ambitious plan fell behind schedule, largely thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. At present, the first Indians are not scheduled to go into orbit only in the last quarter of 2024. Two uncrewed launches will precede the mission to send Indians into orbit to test various parameters of the human-rated spacecraft.. 

Starting in 2020, four Indian Air Force (IAF) officers also began training at Russia’s Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre for the Gaganyaan mission. While their training was spectacularly ill-timed - starting right at the onset of the pandemic - they nevertheless completed the course in a year. However, with Russia’s space programme financially constrained and heavily sanctioned because of the country’s ongoing war with Ukraine, India is clearly looking to diversify. While the agreement to train Indian spacefarers in the United States may have come too late to speed up the schedule for the first Gaganyaan launch, it is an important step in India’s hunt for a reliable partner to train its ‘vyomanauts’ as ISRO has called them. 

India and the US have also inched closer towards cooperating on lunar exploration. The fact sheet commits ISRO and NASA to bring together Indian private sector space companies and American companies involved in the CLPS programme. CLPS is part of America’s expansive plans to return to the Moon sustainably. While NASA is to focus on some of the big-ticket projects like sending humans to the lunar surface, CLPS allows private companies to take scientific payloads from NASA and others to the Moon on uncrewed spacecraft. NASA’s goal is to act as a primary customer for these private missions until they become commercially viable and self-sustaining.  

By engaging India with CLPS, the US appears to have two goals. One is to find Indian customers for the American CLPS companies. The other is to involve India in the US-led multinational effort to return to the Moon. Much of this comes under the rubric of what the US calls the Artemis programme. Countries that want to join the Artemis programme are required to sign the Artemis Accords, a series of ten principles governing lunar activity. While most of these principles are innocuous aspects of existing international law, a few, like those that allow the use of lunar resources and call for ‘deconfliction,’ raise concerns about the creation of de facto private real estate or even de facto sovereign territory on the Moon. 

By last count, 23 states including the US were part of the Artemis Accords. India has not signed up, evidently because it is concerned that the accords create a parallel legal framework that is designed to primarily serve US interests and impinge on India’s own lunar ambitions.  

If Indian companies decide to become customers or even partners in the CLPS, it will be interesting to see if they are implicitly or even explicitly expected to agree to some of the Artemis principles. 

The third important aspect of space cooperation outlined in the factsheet is a handful of steps to encourage greater commercial space cooperation and interaction between experts on both sides. India’s Department of Space and the US’ Department of Commerce are to lead a new initiative under the existing Civil Space Joint Working Group or CSJWG to “foster U.S.-India commercial space engagement and enable growth and partnerships between U.S. and Indian commercial space sectors.” While such initiatives may seem minor, they can help pave the way for Indian and American space companies to forge productive partnerships in a heavily regulated sector. 

Finally, the fact sheet also announces steps to make “talent exchanges” easier and increase interaction between ISRO and NASA personnel. While these initiatives don’t address some of the gripes Indian private space companies have with visa rules, they are obviously intended to build trust between the two countries’ national space agencies, which have long looked at each other warily. 

Biopolitik: The Promise of Gene Drive

— Saurabh Todi

Gene drives are genetic elements of an organism that are transmitted to progeny at higher than mendelian frequencies (>50%). Gene editing techniques such as CRISPR–Cas9 have made gene drives extremely efficient in laboratory settings and have shown the potential to reduce the prevalence of vector-borne diseases, crop pests, and non-native invasive species. Research in gene drives, especially on mosquitoes, is being carried out by scientists at the University of California, San Diego, Texas A&M University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among others. However, concerns have been raised regarding the potential unintended consequences, especially in terms of the ecological impact of gene-drive systems.

Reducing the incidence of vector-borne diseases has become a technology demonstrator for gene drive technology. Mosquitoes engineered with gene drive systems can pass specific genes to the next generation at higher than Mendelian inheritance rates (>50%). This ensures that the target gene spreads through the wild-type mosquito population, despite some associated fitness costs. Gene-drive mosquito techniques work in two major ways: They reduce the population of mosquitos (population suppression); or modify (population replacement) a given vector population.

Population suppression involves the release of modified male mosquitoes to suppress vector populations to a level which makes it difficult to sustain malaria transmission. Population suppression strategies are based on the inactivation, or knock-out, of genes which aim to reduce fertility or production of female progeny or are biased towards higher production of male progeny (which do not bite). In a small study, gene drive mosquitoes wiped out captive populations of mosquitoes in just eight to twelve generations. In contrast, the population replacement method aims to reduce the ability of a mosquito to transmit the malaria pathogen. Population replacement strategies are based on the inactivation of genes that enable mosquitoes to be effective vectors. For example, many potential effector genes have been identified to impair the development of Plasmodium parasites (that cause malaria) by Anopheles mosquitoes (the vector).

The use of either population replacement or population suppression would depend on their relative strengths and challenges in the given situation. For example, population replacement can provide a level of environmental safety because it would not result in the elimination of an ecological niche that an opportunistic invasive species could occupy. However, it is a risky approach because the genetic modification will remain in the environment forever, increasing the likelihood of unintended consequences. To address these concerns, scientists are working on ways to reduce the risk of the unintentional spread of a gene drive mosquito and to ensure researchers hold much more control over their safe manipulation. Scientists at the University of California, San Diego, may have found a way to reduce this risk. They have created a flexible genetic "hacking" system for converting split gene drives (sDGs) into full gene drives (fGDs) while reducing the risk of using the latter.

Although gene drive technology to eliminate vector-borne diseases such as Malaria hasn't been commercialised yet, it holds promise to reduce the scourge of this disease, which causes upwards of 600,000 deaths annually, predominantly in Africa.

Antariksh Matters #2: Reducing Space Threats, Round 3

— Pranav R Satyanath

In the previous edition of Technopolitiik, we covered the recommendations from our discussion document for our OEWG. On a positive note, that version of the document was published as a working paper for the OEWG. But not all was positive in the third round, as we shall see.

Disagreements among states must not shock us. It is exactly what was expected of the group. It seems, however, that the OEWG is widening the divide between some member-states rather than bridging them. More prevailingly, the third meeting of the OEWG also revealed that states do not agree on the working procedures of the group, something that could eventually threaten to derail the entire OEWG process. I identified two issues that could cause deadlocks in the final round of the OEWG, which will be held in August this year.

1. Consensus about consensus: The first major issue that occupied the minds of the member-states was regarding the procedure of the OEWG. The issue of consensus arose when Russia and China protested the participation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) during the formal session of the OEWG. They argued that since members disagree on the status of NGOs, no consensus can be reached; therefore, agreeing on the participation of NGOs is invalid. The Chair, on his part, ruled the participation of NGOs in the formal sessions as valid since no consensus could be reached.

Russia, China and other states interpreted the Chair’s move as divergence from the OEWG’s mandate and, therefore, an abuse of the Chair’s power. Russia protected the participation of NGOs into the second day, arguing that the lack of consensus about consensus threatens the future of OEWG, including the adoption of a final outcome paper.

2. International Humanitarian Law: The status of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) was already a contested issue in the opening meeting of the OEWG. The contest over the status of IHL grew all the more intense in the third round. China, for its part, argued that invoking IHL would mean accepting outer space as a domain of armed conflict since IHL deals with customary laws of armed conflict. Therefore, applying IHL would mean that states automatically classify outer space as a domain for warfighting. Russia echoed these sentiments while also arguing that Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty (OST) already enables the partial demilitarisation of space. Accepting the applicability of IHL in space, in Russia’s logic, would overturn the principles of the OST.

Of course, the issue of the need for pure legally-binding instruments and the status of non-legally-binding measures persist between states. These matters might sound mundane to many, including veterans of the space sector. However, it is important to note that with no common principles for governing space, we may end up in a situation where no advancements are made to govern the use of dual-use technologies or the deployment of space-based conventional armaments. 

Resolving the debates about the founding principles of outer space security, safety, and sustainability is essential to achieve stable, universally-applicable treaties. 

Our Reading Menu

[Twitter Thread] Why does chatGPT make up fake academic papers? by David Smerdon

[Report] Controlling the innovation chain: China’s strategy to become a science & technology superpower

[Paper] Digital Power China

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Matsinaya: Backdoors to state control

— Shailesh Chitnis

The Chinese government has signalled a shift in how it plans to control big tech. This month, news reports emerged that state-owned enterprises are set to take a 1% stake in two of its most prominent tech companies, Alibaba and Tencent.

Euphemistically dubbed "golden shares," this small stake grants special privileges and gives the government an outsized role in how these companies are run. Typically, these shares come with a board seat and the right to review or veto any content decisions. The stake in Alibaba was acquired by an investment fund set up by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's central internet regulator and censor.

So far, the arrangement seems to target companies with a significant user base for online content. Alibaba owns social media entities, including Youku, the Chinese version of YouTube, and the web browser UCWeb. Tencent operates Tencent Video, a popular Chinese streaming service. In April 2021, the government paid around 2M Rmb (~$290K) for a percent share in ByteDance Technology, the parent of TikTok.

Golden shares, known in China as "Special management shares" have been around since 2015 as a mechanism to control online content platforms. But over the past three years, the government has preferred more direct intervention to curtail what it perceives as an overreach by some of its largest companies. In October 2020, Alibaba controlled Ant Financial's IPO listing, which valued the company at a staggering $313 billion, which was pulled at the last minute. In July 2021, the ride-hailing app company Didi was banned from accepting new users over data privacy concerns. In the same month, China's edtech sector was crushed overnight when the government announced rules preventing these companies from making profits, raising capital, or going public.

With the Chinese economy faltering and Xi Jinping's coronation completed, Beijing appears to be taking a subtler path to control its biggest technology companies. Business leaders may see this as a preferable approach to more aggressive and, at times, unpredictable regulation. Having a government representative on the board will reduce the companies' independence. But there is less scope for sudden rule changes since the insider would be privy to all content moderation decisions. However, shareholders of these companies, in particular overseas investors, won't be too happy with this arrangement. They will have less visibility and control over how the business operates.

These concerns are now playing out publicly in how TikTok is trying to operate in the US. This month, the company shared details of a proposal that would spin off the US arm into a separate entity owned by ByteDance but entirely operated by US government-approved employees. It has also offered to allow Oracle and other third-party monitors to review its video recommendation algorithm. In the absence of a deal, the company is worried that it will be forced to sell its US operations or leave the market.

ByteDance's travails highlight how difficult it will be for Chinese-owned companies to straddle both the US and Chinese markets.

Antariksh Matters: Opening the doors for redressing orbital dangers

— Pranav R Satyanath

Over the past several issues of Techopolitik, we have covered several issues surrounding the weaponisation of space and the threats faced by satellites. One topic of particular interest has been the discussions and deliberations within the Open-Ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats (OEWG).

We began covering the OEWG back in May 2022, when the group held its first meeting in Geneva. The second meeting of the OEWG was help in September. And in 2023, we approach the third meeting of the OEWG.

Much of the deliberations of the OEWG have been covered in a discussion document released in July 2022. During the deliberations, however, it became evident that India did little to be vocal about its own preferences for space risk reduction. After months of lamenting India’s lack of proactiveness, we at the Takshashila Institution have put down our set of recommended approaches for India to pursue at the Conference on Disarmament and the United Nations. The new discussion document titled, “Redressing Orbital Dangers: Approaches to Advance India’s Interests in Outer Space,” also provides an analysis of the US-led moratorium destructive DA-ASAT testing and India’s position on space risk reduction. Here’s an executive summary:

In December 2022, the United Nations overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that called for states to commit not to carry out destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests. The proposed destructive DA-ASAT missile test moratorium does not restrict the research, development and deployment of counterspace capabilities. India, however, abstained from voting on the resolution and indicated its preference for legally-binding instruments. Moreover, India has yet to put forward its proposals for members of international fora to pursue. This document recommends four approaches which India can pursue to secure its interests. These recommendations are:

* Pursue legally-binding instruments which ban the destructive testing of anti-satellite capabilities in outer space.

* Advocate for mutual proximity notifications wherein states notify one another during close approaches or when one satellite operator notices unusual satellite behaviour by another operator.

* Promote sharing space situational awareness data to increase the knowledge of the space environment and build transparency and confidence between states.

* Advance existing norms, rules and responsible behaviours in outer space by adopting and strengthening non-legally-binding measures.

No single recommended approach can redress all the threats in space. India must therefore advocate for multiple approaches in tandem to achieve peace and prosperity in outer space.

Cyberpolitik: Closing all backdoors through open-source

— Bharath Reddy

Open-source software (OSS) can help India achieve techno-strategic autonomy, economic growth, technology leadership, and skill development. As India takes on the G20 presidency, it needs to champion the adoption of OSS and create a sustainable ecosystem around it. A pledge by G20 countries to follow an OSS-first procurement policy that opts for proprietary closed-source solutions only when OSS options are unavailable can go a long way in creating an affordable and accessible common digital future. 

The rise of platforms and cloud-based services is a significant cause for concern in the information age. Big tech companies wield enormous power as gatekeepers of platforms. Network effects and vertically integrated services make it increasingly difficult for users to opt-out. User data often ends up being locked in silos. The need to have ownership and sovereignty over one’s data is increasingly being recognised as an essential consideration in determining our choice of software.

France and Germany have recognised the perils of having government communication on siloed big tech platforms such as Slack, Teams, WhatsApp or Telegram. They have taken the lead in moving government communication to a decentralised platform based on the Matrix open standard. France and Germany also have, to different extents, banned Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google Workspace, citing concerns around compliance with GDPR and data sovereignty.

These moves recognise that we live in an environment of increasing geopolitical risks. OSS offers a path to techno-strategic autonomy and data sovereignty. It provides unfettered access to secure, reliable and transparent technologies and ensures that data ownership stays with the users.

The ominous term surveillance capitalism accurately describes the practice followed by tech companies to exploit users' personal data for advertising-driven profit. Surveillance capitalism thrives on the power of platforms. Tech companies have convinced users to trade our privacy for convenience to such an extent that they can predict our behaviour and influence it. We need software and algorithms that are transparent and inspire trust. If we indeed want to mitigate surveillance, open-source is the way to go.

Building software using OSS components is now the de-facto model. Reusable modular OSS components can reduce costs and speed up the development process. A recent study shows that almost 97% of commercial software contains open-source code. This increased reliance on OSS puts additional strain on the communities of developers who maintain the code. Maintenance of OSS, including feature updates, bug fixes, and security updates, is a significant strain on the developers maintaining this code. Given that OSS forms the backbone of most software, a sustainable ecosystem with a contribution culture is essential.

Governments are some of the biggest purchasers of software and IT services. The union government already has a soft preference for OSS in software procurement. Current IT procurement policies, such as the e-Governance Policy Initiatives under Digital India of 2015, state that the government shall endeavour to adopt OSS in e-governance systems and that OSS should be mandatorily considered as one of the options. A stronger preference for OSS in government purchases can go a long way in creating a sustainable open-source ecosystem. IT procurement policies of the union and state governments should mandate that all software purchased through tax-payer funding be open-source. Proprietary and closed technologies should be considered only where adequate OSS technologies are not an option. 

"Public Money? Public Code!" can be the guiding principle for government software purchases. In practice, this will lead to tax-payer-funded software having the freedom for everyone to use, modify, study, change and redistribute. The trickle-down effects will benefit society as a whole.

OSS is an integral part of our common digital future, and promoting it will lead to economic growth and skill development. It will promote open standards and interoperability. It will also lead to skill development, job creation and entrepreneurship. All of these benefits are aligned with the objectives of the G20 in promoting an affordable and accessible common digital future. Investing in OSS will also help countries of the global south access state-of-the-art technologies.

Adopting an OSS-first procurement policy by the G20 countries can create strong incentives for a vibrant open-source ecosystem. India must lead the way by adopting such a policy and champion other countries to pledge to do the same. In addition, G20 countries should also create a common fund which shall be used to fund critical OSS projects. The multiplier effects for the economy will far exceed the costs incurred towards maintaining these projects. 

Our Reading Menu

[Blog] TikTok is a New Type of Superweapon by Gurwinder.

[Article] Trust but verify: Satellite reconnaissance, secrecy and arms control during the Cold War by Aaron Bateman.

[Report] Software Power: The Economic and Geopolitical Implications of Open Source Software by Alice Pannier

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com