Global Technology Summit: External Affairs Minister Jaishankar stresses on the importance of data
Global Technology Summit
Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar delivered the inaugural address at the Global Technology Summit on Tuesday. The minister said that when it comes to India, our sense of technology has been very narrow. He further said that since much of the global economy is driven by technology, it is hard to ignore its political connotations.
"If you asked people in government about their sense of strategic technologies, they would say defence, nuclear and space. That perspective is 50 years out of date. It’s a completely different world out there. What we in India call Atmanirbhar Bharat, you can call an economic ‘strategic autonomy’," he said.
Jaishankar stressed the importance of data in today's day and age and quoted Clive Humby, a British mathematician and data science entrepreneur, to say that data is the new oil. The phrase plays on the point that what oil was to the 18th century, data is to the 21st century. It is a valuable resource from which value needs to be extracted properly.
He also said that technology export controls lend acountry the ability to influence politics and decision making in societies.“We cannot be agnostic about technology. We have to stop pretending that there is something neutral about technology. Technology is no more neutral than economics or any other activity," said Jaishankar.
"Neither tech nor globalisation should be an economic issue, it is a political science issue. Indians in the last twoyears have woken up to the fact, where does our data reside?," he said.
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Jaishankar also said that the criteria to assess India's geopolitical interests, when it comes to technology, should be "who gives us access, who is our collaborator and who is our market".
"The world, particularly large countries with deep interest, are actually moving towards just-in-case rather than just-in-time approach," he said.
He further said that the future of globalisation will be driven by technology.“The key question is: are you for collaborative globalisation or are you for a model that allows domination by a few players? How flat or broad is the globalisation model? That debate will very much be driven by technology."
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