Sridhar Vembu warns India is too dependent on US tech, calls for national mission to beat Trump ban threat

Zoho, a Chennai-based IT firm, has been making headlines in recent weeks. The company’s messaging app Arattai has emerged as a homegrown alternative to WhatsApp. However, Zoho founder and chief Sridhar Vembu believes that there is still a long way to go before India can truly end its dependency on foreign tech.

On X, Vembu replied to a post from Industrialist Harsh Goekna. Goekna raised concerns over the potential impact a political crisis between India and the US might have on the tech industry if US President Donald Trump decides to ban US apps in India. He wrote, “No X, Google, Instagram, Facebook or ChatGPT. Frightening, no!
Just think about the consequences seriously and what could be Plan B for us.”

Zoho founder wants India to have own OS, processors

Sridhar Vembu stated that apps were just a part of the problem. According to the Zoho founder, India’s dependency on foreign tech expanded across “OS, chips, fabs” and more.

As a way to end this issue, Vembu insisted that the country needed a long-term solution, what he called a 10-year “National Mission for Tech Resilience.”

Sridhar Vembu did acknowledge that this may not be easy but asserted that “It can be done.”

Zoho already offers several services, including Zoho Mail, Arattai, Zoho Sheet and more, that many have used as against western alternatives.

India’s reliance on foreign OS and processors

Globally, smartphones run primarily on only two operating systems, Android and iOS, both run by US companies. Huawei has made progress with HarmonyOS, but it remains limited mostly in China. In comparison, India does not have its own operating system for smartphones or even a version for PCs like Windows.

Similarly, the world’s biggest chip fabrication facilities are owned by the likes of Taiwan’s TSMC and Korea’s Samsung. The processor in your smartphone was likely manufactured by either of the two.

India has been working on its own chipset manufacturing and launched the Vikram 32-bit processor earlier this year. However, there is a long way to go before we can make chipsets as powerful as market leaders at the current pace.

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