Emerging Technologies: AI, Quantum Computing and Semiconductors

Prerequisites: IT, Computers and Emerging Technologies — overview · Cyber Security

The Hook: Two Nobel Prizes for Machine Learning

The Core Concept

Three technologies dominate the “emerging tech” part of the syllabus. Each is explained below as what it is → how it works → applications → India’s status → issues.

1. Artificial intelligence

What it is. AI is the ability of a machine to perform tasks that normally need human intelligence — recognising images and speech, translating, predicting, planning and generating text or images.

How it works. Most modern AI is machine learning (ML): instead of being given explicit rules, a program is shown large amounts of data and adjusts internal numbers (“parameters”) until its predictions match the examples. Deep learning uses many-layered artificial neural networks, loosely inspired by neurons, which learn increasingly abstract features layer by layer. Generative AI models — including large language models (LLMs) — are trained on vast text or image collections to predict the next word or pixel, which lets them produce new content. They can also produce fluent but false output, known as hallucination.

graph TD
    A[Artificial Intelligence] --> B[Machine Learning: learns from data]
    B --> C[Deep Learning: many-layered neural networks]
    C --> D[Generative AI: creates text, images, code]
    D --> E[Large Language Models]

Applications. Crop-disease detection and weather-based advisories; screening X-rays and retinal images; language translation for public services (the government’s Bhashini platform under the National Language Translation Mission); traffic management; fraud detection in banking; protein-structure prediction in drug discovery.

India’s status.

• IndiaAI Mission — approved in March 2024 with an outlay of ₹10,371.92 crore, for shared AI compute (GPUs), datasets, indigenous foundation models, start-up financing and skilling.
• India was a founding member of the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) in 2020 and hosted its summit in New Delhi in December 2023.
• India co-chaired the AI Action Summit in Paris in February 2025.
• The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 governs the processing of personal data, including data used to train AI systems.

Issues. Bias in training data; deepfakes and misinformation; privacy; opacity (“black box” decisions); job displacement; the energy and water demand of data centres; concentration of compute and data in a few firms; copyright over training data; accountability when an AI system causes harm.

2. Quantum technology

What it is. Technologies that use quantum-mechanical effects — superposition and entanglement — for computing, communication and sensing.

How it works. A classical bit is either 0 or 1. A qubit can exist in a superposition of 0 and 1 until it is measured. Two qubits can be entangled, so that measuring one instantly fixes the state of the other, however far apart they are. A quantum computer manipulates many entangled qubits together, which makes certain problems — factoring large numbers, simulating molecules, some optimisation tasks — vastly faster than on classical machines. Qubits are fragile: heat, vibration or stray fields cause decoherence, so most designs operate near absolute zero and need error correction.

Why it matters for security. A large, error-corrected quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm could break today’s widely used public-key encryption. Governments are therefore moving to post-quantum cryptography — classical algorithms believed to resist quantum attack.

India’s status. The National Quantum Mission was approved in April 2023 with an outlay of ₹6,003.65 crore from 2023-24 to 2030-31, implemented by the Department of Science and Technology. Its targets include intermediate-scale quantum computers with 50–1,000 physical qubits within eight years and satellite-based secure quantum communication over 2,000 km between ground stations. It is organised around four thematic hubs — computing, communication, sensing and metrology, and materials and devices.

Issues. Very high cost; scarce specialised talent; dependence on imported components such as dilution refrigerators; the need to migrate government and banking systems to quantum-safe encryption well before large quantum computers arrive.

3. Semiconductors

What it is. A semiconductor (mainly silicon) conducts electricity better than an insulator but worse than a metal, and its conductivity can be controlled. A chip packs billions of tiny transistors — switches — onto a silicon wafer.

How it works — the value chain.

The “node” (for example 28 nm or 3 nm) broadly indicates how finely transistors are made; smaller nodes pack more transistors per chip. Moore’s law — the observation that the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every two years — has driven this for decades, but is slowing as transistors approach atomic scales.

Applications. Phones and computers, vehicles and electric-vehicle power electronics, telecom equipment, defence systems, medical devices and the data centres that train AI.

India’s status.

• The Semicon India Programme (December 2021) set aside ₹76,000 crore to support fabs, display fabs, ATMP/OSAT units and chip design, run through the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM).
• Approvals include Micron’s ATMP unit at Sanand, Gujarat (June 2023), and, in February 2024, a Tata Electronics fab at Dholera, Gujarat (with Taiwan’s PSMC), a Tata assembly-and-test unit in Assam and a CG Power OSAT unit at Sanand.

Issues. Fabs need tens of thousands of crores of capital, uninterrupted power and ultra-pure water; India lacks a mature supplier ecosystem for chemicals, gases and equipment; global supply is concentrated in a few places, which makes it a geopolitical chokepoint; export controls on advanced chips and tools.

Other technologies at a glance

Memory Anchors

AI nesting doll: “All Machines Dream Generously” → AI ⊃ Machine learning ⊃ Deep learning ⊃ Generative AI.

Quantum’s three S’s: Superposition (many states at once), Spooky entanglement (linked qubits), Sensitivity (decoherence).

Mission numbers: “21 – 23 – 24” → Semicon India (2021), National Quantum Mission (2023), IndiaAI Mission (2024).

One-line Mains hook: AI capacity rests on three pillars — compute, data and talent — and a country that imports all three cannot claim technological sovereignty.

For Prelims

For Mains

• Dimensions: economic (productivity, jobs, digital public infrastructure); strategic (chip supply security, quantum-safe encryption); social (inclusion through Indian-language AI, digital divide); ethical (bias, deepfakes, privacy); environmental (energy and water use of data centres).
• Keywords: sovereign compute, foundation models, algorithmic accountability, explainability, techno-legal approach, supply-chain resilience, trusted partners, quantum-safe migration.
• Value-addition: IndiaAI Mission (2024); DPDP Act (2023); National Quantum Mission (2023); Semicon India Programme (2021); India’s role in GPAI and the Paris AI Action Summit (2025).

Common Traps

In the News

• October 2024 — Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry recognise neural networks and AI-based protein-structure prediction.
• February 2025 — India co-chairs the AI Action Summit in Paris.
• October 2025 — the Nobel Prize in Physics went to John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis for demonstrating macroscopic quantum tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit — work underlying superconducting qubits. Follow-ups on the current affairs page.

Practice

Prelims

Mains

Quick Revision

Key Takeaways

Related Topics

• IT and Emerging Tech — quick revision
• IT and Emerging Tech — practice questions
• Cyber Security and Communication Networks
• Nanotechnology and New Materials — materials behind chips and qubits
• Industry and Infrastructure
• Intellectual Property Rights — software and AI-related patents