Geopolitics of Technology | Praxis Foundation Day

 

Ever since OpenAI dropped ChatGPT into the world, things haven't been the same. Sure, AI as a concept goes back to Alan Turing -- the father of modern computing -- but ChatGPT forced it right into our daily conversations. Today, you can hardly talk about the future without bringing up AI: how incredible it is on one hand, and the darker fears on the other -- lost jobs, or even machines replacing human companionship.

This obsession feels intimately familiar to me. It takes me back to the frenzy around computer science -- or IT -- at the turn of the century. Fueled by Y2K, India convinced itself that the direct path to corporate nirvana ran straight through companies like Infosys, TCS, and Wipro. Students rushed into IT from every branch of engineering, and soon from almost every other background too, leaving almost everything else behind. It didn't matter what you studied or if you even liked coding. What mattered was that doing basic software work for American companies was the quickest way to make money. I’m not standing here with bitterness -- I made my living there too. But it was painful to watch so many brilliant minds doing low-end work while cheering from the sidelines when ISRO launched another rocket from Sriharikota.

Like any bubble, though, obsessions fade. In fact, today’s obsession with AI is quietly killing yesterday’s obsession with routine coding. So today, I don't want to talk about AI, and I don't want to talk about coding. I want to talk about something fundamentally different.

Recent geopolitical conflicts, like the tensions between the US and Iran, have given us a wake-up call: our real economy runs on forces far removed from software algorithms. Now, AI and coding matter -- they are part of the core infrastructure of modern commerce. But other critical technologies deserve our attention. Technologies that don't just sit on a server, but shape national politics and global trade. Technologies that define the true contours of geopolitics.

So what are these technologies quietly pulling the strings away from the spotlight? There are several, but let me focus on a few that matter most.

Take energy. Look at the Middle East, where conflict threatens the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. It takes very little to realize how fragile the global economy is when a single choke point gets squeezed. What’s the fix? Renewable energy? Realistically, no. Gandhi’s village economy might run on wind and solar, but as Europe has learned the hard way, you cannot power a full-scale industrial society on intermittent renewables alone. If we want to cut our reliance on hydrocarbons while protecting the environment, nuclear power is the only realistic answer.

For India, that means Thorium-based nuclear power -- the vision Homi Bhabha laid out before his tragic death in an air crash. That vision is taking tangible shape at Kalpakkam with the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), which recently loaded its core and achieved criticality. An indigenously designed reactor that creates more fuel than it consumes, serving as the crucial bridge to our vast domestic thorium reserves. Small Modular Reactors and fast breeders like Kalpakkam aren't just experiments; they are our path forward. It's time we put our strategic energy here.

Then there are Rare Earth Elements and critical minerals. These are fifteen or so elements with names that most of us have never heard of—Neodymium, Dysprosium, Terbium. Yet they sit quietly inside almost everything we depend on: EV motors, smartphones, missiles, satellites. They may not be rare in the ground, but the ability to refine and process them is concentrated in very few hands. In the twenty-first century, control over supply chains can matter as much as control over territory.

Look at defence and aerospace as well. The war in Ukraine showed us how inexpensive drones can knock out multi-million-dollar tanks, while precision missiles wait patiently for targets. AI certainly plays a role, but the real story is propulsion, guidance systems, advanced materials, and manufacturing capability. Consider what Skyroot Aerospace is achieving with the Vikram 1 rocket – a private Indian enterprise mastering 3D-printed liquid engines, solid propulsion, and carbon-composite structures to launch satellites into orbit. That is a reminder of what happens when a nation decides to master physical, strategic technology. 

And this brings me to an important question.

Why am I speaking about Thorium, Rare Earths, and missiles at the foundation day of a business school?

Because every great technology eventually becomes a management problem.

Scientists may build reactors. Engineers may design drones. But who will finance them, regulate them, build the supply chains around them, manage the risks, scale the enterprises, and take them to the world? Nations do not succeed because they have good scientists alone. They succeed because they produce leaders who can connect science, business, policy, and society.

For the last twenty years, we prepared our students for a world where success was often measured by how well they could fit into the global services economy. There is nothing wrong with that. It served India well, and it served many of us well.

But the next twenty years may ask different questions.

Can we build resilient supply chains? Can we secure our energy future? Can we lead in advanced manufacturing? Can we understand geopolitics as well as we understand quarterly reports? Can we read a balance sheet and a map of the world with equal confidence?

These are management questions.

AI will undoubtedly transform our lives, and many of our students will help shape that future. But history teaches us a simple lesson: just as individual lives are built around Roti, Kapda, and Makan, civilizations are ultimately built on energy, materials, and security. 

India's first great story of this century was written in code. The next great story will be written in atoms, minerals, machines, and the men and women who learn how to manage them.

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Praxis Business School | Foundation Day | 30th July 2026