India's Chip War

02/25/24 • 73 min

1 Listener

Why can India design chips with the best of them but has completely failed to develop fabs, much less a broader electronics industry? To discuss, I have on Pranay Kotasthane, former chip designer at TI and Qualcomm who now works at the Takshashila Institution and is the author of the new book When the Chips are Down.

Chris Miller of Chip War cohosts.

We get into:

How the political economy of technology in India led to world class software and services but underwhelming manufacturing
Why India was slower to the uptake than China that socialism really sucks at getting your country rich
What it takes to design a chip.

Outtro music: Ye Jo Des Hai Tera https://youtu.be/4tiVPuLbbHg?feature=shared

Image: spectacular Mughal painting of an elephant currently on at the Met. that I prompted with semiconductor alot https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/825607?pkgids=906

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Chris Miller of Chip War cohosts.

We get into:

How the political economy of technology in India led to world class software and services but underwhelming manufacturing
Why India was slower to the uptake than China that socialism really sucks at getting your country rich
What it takes to design a chip.

Outtro music: Ye Jo Des Hai Tera https://youtu.be/4tiVPuLbbHg?feature=shared

Image: spectacular Mughal painting of an elephant currently on at the Met. that I prompted with semiconductor alot https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/825607?pkgids=906

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Previous Episode

AI at the Frontier: What it Takes to Compete

What does it take to train a frontier model? What's the know-how, the secret sauce that makes firms lets OpenAI and Deepmind push the limits of what's possible? How much are Chinese firms benefitting from western open source, and in the long term is it possible for western labs to maintain an edge?

The hosts of the excellent Latent Space podcast, Alessio Fanelli of Decibel VC and Shawn Wang of Smol AI, come on to discuss.

We get into:

How the secret sauce used to push the frontier of AI diffuses out of the top labs and into substacks
How labs are managing the culture change from quasi-academic outfits to places that have to ship
How open source raises the global AI standard, but why there's likely to always be a gap between closed and open source
China as a "GPU Poor" nation
Three key algorithmic innovations that could reshape the balance of power between the GPU rich and GPU poor

Outtro music: CHEKI https://open.spotify.com/track/1zKL2bOEkMDGuIjLhG34YA?si=9a713a88aa3d4f71

Cover photo: "Inkstand with A Madman Distilling His Brains" 1600s Urbino. Kind of like training a model! https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/188899

The met description: In this whimsical maiolica sculpture, a well-dressed man leans forward in his seat with his head in a covered pot set above a fiery hearth. The vessel beside the hearth almost certainly held ink. The man’s actions are explained by an inscription on the chair: "I distill my brain and am totally happy." Thus the task of the writer is equated with distillation—the process through which a liquid is purified by heating and cooling, extracting its essence.

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Next Episode

AI + The State Department

How can AI change diplomacy?

To discuss the State Department’s options for AI integration, we interviewed the State Department's Deputy Chief Data and AI Officer, Garrett Berntsen. He served as an officer during two tours in Afghanistan and recently rotated off the NSC. He's optimistic diplomacy can be more effective with comprehensive, timely, and accurate data-driven analysis, and that AI will be part of achieving that mission.

We get into:

How AI can streamline bureaucratic busy work
The value of data-driven negotiation prep in diplomatic contexts
The benefits of transparency in a democratic society
What level of risk is appropriate for the civil service
How close he is to getting ChatGPT into State
The balance between transparency and secrecy in the age of big data
How the Snowden leaks changed the State Department’s relationship with technology
What the State Department can and can't import from the private sector

Thanks to the Hudson Institute and Andrew Marshall Foundation for supporting this podcast.

Outtro music: 國蛋 GorDoN - White Noise ft. 蛋堡 Soft Lipa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31ZM440owzw

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