Warfare has evolved from conventional warfare to a technology-driven warfare of power, and India’s ability to defend itself from such wars will decide India’s future, industrialist Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group, told the students of IIT Kharagpur on Monday, at the institute’s 75th foundation day.

“This is because most of the wars that we have to fight today are invisible,” said Adani. He said these evolved wars are mostly fought on the server farms, and not in trenches. “The weapons are algorithms, not guns. The empires are not built on land, but on data centres. The armies are botnets and not battalions,” he said, adding that the uncomfortable truth Indians must reckon with, in terms of technological dependency, is the fact that 95% of India’s semiconductors are imported.

Highlighting the vulnerability of India’s digital economy, Adani said that one disruption or sanction can freeze the digital economy. He also highlighted India’s vulnerability in the energy sector, saying that 85% of the fuel India uses is currently imported. “A single geopolitical incident can restrict our growth. When our data crosses our borders, every bit of this data becomes raw material for foreign algorithms, creates foreign wealth, and strengthens foreign dominance.”

According to Adani, the dependency also exists in the defence sector, where critical defence equipment is also imported. “This makes it vulnerable to the political will and the supply chain of other nations. This is the freedom we must fight for. Self-reliance and the freedom of aatmanirbharta, if we are to be truly free,” he said. He also highlighted that the government has laid the foundation of the modern economy.

Speaking of industry, Adani said that India Inc. holds equal responsibility of driving innovation in India to overcome the innovation deficit that the country currently faces. “After all, we stand on the shoulders of public institutes like ISRO, BARC, DRDO, and many more. This has given us the inventions, breakthroughs, and discoveries that form our launchpads,” he said. “From ISRO to Chandraayan, from UPI to vaccine research, from freight corridors to our renewable grids, it is worth reflecting that it is the government that has built the foundation of our modern economy”.