This is not a pipe dream; it could actually happen by 2025, if not earlier. India’s computing and communications pipes are getting bigger by the day, I mean both industry and infrastructure, as well as trade and technology. At present, India’s information and communications technology, what is popularly called as ICT world over, is inching towards $120 billion and would grow at 15 per cent-plus in 2009-10 in spite of the worldwide recession, compared with low single-digit growth in the US. And most of US Fortune 500 companies are driven by India’s software and services.

On top of this, India’s Infosys, TCS, and HCLs have started acquiring US and European companies and getting listed on the NYSE. At present, US industries, research establishments and universities cannot actually run without India’s talents. No wonder Bill Gates had warned the US government few years ago that very soon India would eat American lunch! After all it churns out 500,000 engineers every year, compared with 75,000 from the US.

Bangalore is recognised as the world’s IT capital and the word ‘bangalored’ has entered the Webster dictionary.

It all happened with supercomputers. Way back in 1985, India wanted to buy a supercomputer from the US for weather forecasting. In those days, only the US and Japan had the supercomputing technology. It was denied to India because supercomputing is a ‘dual-use technology’; it could be used by India in its nuclear, space and defence programmes. India’s prime minister who signed the famous Rajiv Gandhi–Ronald Reagan High Technology Award in 1987 was actually humiliated for asking for a supercomputer. Rajiv Gandhi then challenged Indian scientists to create an indigenous supercomputer.

C-DAC was launched in 1988 as India’s national initiative in supercomputing and PARAM became India’s answer to US’ denial. The Wall Street Journal took notice with a frontpage headline: ‘Angry India does IT’. That happened in 1991, barely three years since C-DAC’s launch. In 1998, C-DAC showcased a teraflop architecture supercomputer and India became the world’s third country that possessed this strategic technology.

In 2007, Tata’s CRL went on to build EKA, the world’s fourth most powerful supercomputer next only to the US-built IBM systems. One day, India would beat the US in building Petaflop (1,015 mathematical operations in one second)-range supercomputers.

India’s IT flight is amazing to me, someone who witnessed and participated in creating it since 1971 when the Electronics Commission was established by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi in Homi Bhabha’s vision and under the leadership of Vikram Sarabhai and later MGK Menon. Way back in 1974, as a core member, I had taken the task of estimating India’s electronics industry. It was barely Rs 400 crore. Within three-and-a-half decades, it has increased three-fold, meaning 1,000 times in three decades.

The telecom story is more amazing. Once regarded as the worst telecom nation with poor infrastructure and poorer service, at present, India is a rising giant in telecom with lowest tariffs and best-of-its-kind service. At present, India has crossed a 500 million subscriber base with a momentum of adding 10 million a month, unmatched anywhere in the world. 3G is in the offing, along with new services such as home-grown multi-play IPTV services.

Can India pip US in ICT? Today, the world ICT industry may be more that $4 trillion and that of India is $120 billion. By 2025, with a pool of 5 million quality ICT professionals and 250 million IT literates, India’s 25 per cent of national income, as well as exports, could come from ICT alone. By then, most of the world and particularly the US’ cutting-edge R&D would have moved to India with next-generation chips, mobiles, robots, supercomputers and, of course, a spectrum of software would be designed on Indian soil for the US and the world.