India's next technology challenge is not simply designing more chips, writing more software or manufacturing more devices. It is making all of these pieces work together. An industry-funded, FLOSS-first technology consortium could provide the common software plumbing, APIs, standards, reference implementations and engineering infrastructure on which India's next generation of hardware and software companies can build.
The Missing Layer
India's technology conversation is increasingly moving beyond software services.
There is now serious discussion around semiconductors, RISC-V, electronics manufacturing, embedded systems, artificial intelligence, robotics, automotive electronics, IoT devices and sovereign computing.
But there is a layer between the semiconductor and the finished product that is easy to underestimate.
It is the enormous amount of software that makes hardware usable.
A processor is not a smartphone. A GPU is not a laptop. An NPU is not an AI product. A Wi-Fi chip is not a connected appliance.
Between the silicon and the application sits an enormous amount of engineering:
- bootloaders
- operating-system support
- device drivers
- hardware-abstraction layers
- graphics frameworks
- media frameworks
- AI and NPU runtimes
- networking
- Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support
- power management
- security
- secure boot
- firmware updates
- diagnostics
- storage
- developer tools
- SDKs
- testing infrastructure
- documentation
- hardware compatibility
Much of this work is not what makes a particular product special.
It is plumbing.
And India has an opportunity to build that plumbing as shared infrastructure.
The Plinth and the Statue
Imagine a giant statue.
The statue gets all the attention. It is what people see. It is what makes the structure distinctive.
But the statue needs a plinth.
The plinth does not compete with the statue. It makes the statue possible.
That is how India's open technology ecosystem should think about common software infrastructure.
The consortium should not attempt to build the next smartphone, refrigerator, automobile, robot vacuum cleaner or television.
It should build the plinth on which thousands of such products can stand.
The manufacturer builds the statue.
The startup creates the distinctive shape.
The semiconductor company builds the silicon.
The consortium makes the interfaces between them predictable, reusable and open.
This distinction is crucial.
Standardise the Plumbing, Not the Product
Consider a smart refrigerator.
Its manufacturer might have proprietary algorithms for compressor control, food preservation, energy management and temperature prediction.
Those things can remain proprietary.
But the refrigerator still needs:
- network connectivity
- secure boot
- firmware updates
- sensor interfaces
- storage
- power management
- diagnostics
- security
- device management
- AI acceleration, if used
There is little reason for every manufacturer to independently reinvent every one of these layers.
The same principle applies to washing machines, air conditioners, televisions, monitors, robot vacuums, industrial controllers, automobiles, smart watches, cameras and eventually smartphones.
The consortium could provide common APIs and reference implementations for the boring but essential parts.
Companies could then compete on the interesting parts.
Think of It as a Modular Stack
The architecture could look something like this:
PRODUCT
|
Company-specific software
|
---------------------
COMMON APIs
---------------------
|
+----------------+----------------+
| | |
Graphics AI/NPU Camera
| | |
Media Security Sensors
| | |
Network Storage Power
| | |
+----------------+----------------+
|
Hardware HAL
|
Device Drivers
|
Linux / RTOS / Firmware
|
RISC-V / Other CPU
|
GPU / NPU / VPU / I/O
|
SILICON
The important word is modular.
A company should be able to replace the underlying hardware without having to throw away its entire software investment.
Likewise, a semiconductor company should be able to offer a new chip without requiring every application developer to learn an entirely new software environment.
The AI Analogy Is Particularly Useful
Artificial intelligence provides an excellent analogy.
An application does not necessarily need to know every internal detail of an AI model.
It can communicate through defined interfaces.
The same principle can be applied to hardware.
An application might request an AI inference operation through a common NPU interface.
Underneath that interface could be an NPU from one semiconductor company or a completely different accelerator from another.
The application should not have to be rewritten from scratch every time the silicon changes.
The same idea can apply to:
- GPU acceleration
- video decoding
- camera processing
- audio processing
- sensor access
- cryptography
- storage
- networking
- power management
The consortium therefore does not necessarily need to standardise the implementation.
It needs to standardise the interface.
Different companies can then compete underneath that interface.
RISC-V Needs This Layer
This becomes particularly important as India and other countries explore RISC-V.
The RISC-V instruction-set architecture provides an open foundation for processor design, but a processor ecosystem is much larger than an instruction set.
A successful hardware platform needs compilers, operating systems, drivers, debugging tools, graphics support, AI frameworks, security infrastructure, applications and developer documentation.
Without those layers, a technically impressive processor can remain a demonstration rather than becoming a mass-market platform.
India therefore should not define its RISC-V ambition merely as:
"We need an Indian RISC-V processor."
A more ambitious objective would be:
"We need an ecosystem in which RISC-V processors can become first-class computing platforms."
That requires software.
And software is where a consortium can create enormous leverage.
One Investment, Many Industries
Consider the number of industries that could potentially share portions of the same foundation.
| Industry | Common Infrastructure | Product Differentiation |
|---|---|---|
| Smartphones | Drivers, graphics, AI, connectivity, security, updates | Camera, UI, industrial design, applications, AI features |
| Smart TVs | Graphics, video, audio, networking, storage, OTA | Display processing, UI, recommendations, brand features |
| Smart monitors | Display, USB, networking, firmware, power management | Panel features, productivity software, image processing |
| Automobiles | Security, networking, middleware, OTA, compute abstraction | ADAS, vehicle algorithms, infotainment, proprietary systems |
| Robot vacuums | Sensors, motors, connectivity, AI runtime, device management | Navigation, SLAM, cleaning algorithms and mapping |
| Refrigerators | Connectivity, sensors, security, OTA, diagnostics | Cooling, energy and food-management algorithms |
| Washing machines | Motor interfaces, sensors, connectivity, security | Wash algorithms, load detection and user experience |
| Air conditioners | Sensors, networking, power management, OTA | Thermal algorithms, energy optimisation and control |
| Industrial IoT | Networking, security, device management, diagnostics | Industrial applications and control algorithms |
| Robotics | Motor control, sensors, compute and AI runtimes | Robot intelligence, navigation and task-specific software |
One common investment could therefore support many industries.
That is the economic logic behind a consortium.
It Could Lower the Barrier for Startups
This may ultimately be one of the consortium's greatest contributions.
Imagine a startup with twenty engineers wanting to build a new industrial robot.
It should not have to spend the first year writing its own basic infrastructure for networking, firmware updates, security, hardware abstraction, graphics, device management and accelerator support.
It should be able to start much higher up the stack.
Its question should be:
"What can our company do that nobody else does?"
rather than:
"How do we recreate the infrastructure that hundreds of companies have already recreated?"
This is particularly important in India because the country has an enormous base of engineers and startups but cannot afford to duplicate expensive engineering effort indefinitely.
A common open foundation allows the same engineering work to create value across many companies.
Build Once. Improve Together.
There is another advantage to the open model.
A proprietary solution maintained by one small company can become a liability if that company disappears.
An open project can potentially survive changes in individual companies because the code, documentation, issue history and technical knowledge remain available to a wider community.
That does not automatically make open-source software sustainable. Open projects still require maintainers, infrastructure, security work and funding.
That is precisely why the consortium needs to exist.
Open source without maintainers is an abandoned building.
Open source with sustained engineering investment becomes infrastructure.
The Apache and Eclipse Lessons
This idea would not need to be invented from scratch.
The Apache Software Foundation demonstrates one model in which individual projects retain substantial technical autonomy while operating within a common foundation and governance structure. Apache explicitly describes its projects as self-governing and driven by their communities, with Project Management Committees responsible for project governance.
The Eclipse Foundation provides another useful model. Its working groups allow companies and other participants to collaborate around shared industry problems while maintaining vendor-neutral governance. Eclipse currently operates industry collaborations across areas including automotive, IoT, edge computing, developer tooling and open hardware.
These examples suggest an important principle:
The foundation can provide the legal, financial, infrastructure and coordination layer without becoming the technical owner of everything.
That distinction should be fundamental to any Indian model.
The Indian Model: Fund the Commons
Imagine an Indian Open Technology Foundation.
It could be funded primarily by industry, with government acting as an enabler rather than the owner of the technology.
Potential members could include:
- semiconductor companies
- automobile manufacturers
- electronics manufacturers
- appliance companies
- telecom companies
- IT companies
- cloud providers
- startups
- universities
- research institutions
- multinational companies operating significant engineering organisations in India
The government could support the ecosystem through appropriate incentives, research funding, procurement opportunities, testing infrastructure, university programmes and other mechanisms.
But the code should remain open and the technical governance should remain independent.
This leads to a simple division of responsibility:
- Government: create favourable conditions.
- Industry: provide funding and engineering resources.
- Universities: provide research and talent.
- Foundation: provide infrastructure, coordination and long-term stewardship.
- Developers: build and maintain the technology.
- Open-source communities: retain technical authority over projects.
Do Not Fork the World
This principle is particularly important.
India should not create an Indian copy of every major open-source project.
If the world already has an excellent project, India should contribute to it.
If an important project needs more maintainers, India can supply maintainers.
If it needs better documentation, India can provide documentation.
If it needs better hardware support, India can provide hardware support.
If it needs security work, India can fund security engineering.
If it needs testing infrastructure, India can build testing infrastructure.
The objective is not to create an Indian island.
The objective is to make India one of the major engineering centres of the global open technology commons.
That would be genuine technological participation rather than technological isolation.
The 10,000-Engineer Idea Looks Different in This Model
Earlier, the idea of a large publicly supported pool of software engineers might sound like an employment programme.
Within this model, it becomes something else.
It becomes strategic maintainership.
India could support a large engineering workforce dedicated to maintaining critical open infrastructure.
Some could work directly for the foundation.
Others could remain employees of member companies while contributing upstream.
Some could specialise in Linux and embedded systems.
Others could work on LLVM, graphics, AI runtimes, security, automotive software, networking, firmware, testing or documentation.
The important metric would not simply be how many lines of code they produce.
It would be:
- how many important projects they maintain
- how many hardware platforms they support
- how many vulnerabilities they help resolve
- how many companies can build on their work
- how many Indian products become easier to develop
- how much duplicated engineering effort disappears
Canonical India Could Become the Integration Layer
This is where the earlier idea of a hypothetical Canonical India becomes interesting.
It need not simply mean an Indian Linux distribution.
It could instead be conceived as a platform-engineering organisation responsible for making the pieces work together.
Its test laboratory could continuously test:
- Linux
- bootloaders
- RISC-V processors
- GPUs
- NPUs
- VPUs
- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
- cameras
- displays
- audio
- power management
- storage
- automotive hardware
- embedded hardware
New hardware could enter the laboratory.
The platform could be tested against real workloads.
Problems could be reported upstream.
Drivers could be improved.
Documentation could be updated.
The next hardware generation could then be designed with real software experience in mind.
This creates a feedback loop between silicon and software.
Hardware Becomes a Testbed for Software
This is one of the strongest aspects of the model.
Suppose an Indian semiconductor company develops a new RISC-V SoC.
The consortium could put it through a common platform test suite.
It could measure:
- boot time
- power consumption
- driver maturity
- GPU performance
- NPU performance
- memory bandwidth
- storage performance
- video playback
- browser performance
- application compatibility
- security
- sleep and wake behaviour
- thermal behaviour
The results could then feed back into both software and hardware engineering.
Hardware manufacturers learn what software actually needs.
Software developers learn what hardware actually does.
The ecosystem gradually becomes better at both.
Common Standards Could Create Hardware Competition
This is perhaps the most interesting economic consequence.
Imagine three companies producing different embedded SoCs.
If all three support the same open platform APIs, a product manufacturer can potentially evaluate them based on:
- price
- power
- performance
- AI capability
- memory bandwidth
- security
- longevity
rather than being locked into a completely different software environment for every chip.
That makes the silicon market more contestable.
Competition shifts toward the things semiconductor companies should actually compete on.
The software layer becomes an ecosystem multiplier rather than a barrier to entry.
Open Does Not Mean Everything Must Be Open
This distinction should also be made clearly.
A company should be able to keep genuinely differentiating intellectual property proprietary.
A car manufacturer does not have to open-source its autonomous-driving algorithms simply because it uses an open operating system.
A refrigerator company can keep its energy-management algorithm proprietary.
A smartphone company can develop its own camera algorithms.
A robot manufacturer can maintain proprietary navigation technology.
The common platform should exist underneath them.
In simple terms:
Open the foundation. Compete on the innovation.
From RISC-V to the Mass Market
This is ultimately why the software consortium matters to the semiconductor programme.
A new processor does not become successful merely because it works in a laboratory.
It becomes successful when developers can build applications for it, manufacturers can integrate it, consumers can buy products using it and companies can support those products for years.
That requires an ecosystem.
And ecosystems are built through shared infrastructure.
The path could therefore look like:
Open ISA ↓ Open silicon ↓ Common drivers ↓ Common APIs ↓ Common SDKs ↓ Common testing ↓ Common security infrastructure ↓ Reference platforms ↓ Startups ↓ Products ↓ Consumers ↓ More hardware demand ↓ More semiconductor investment ↓ Better hardware ↓ Better software ↓ More products
This is a flywheel.
The Consortium Could Become India's Technology Pedestal
There is a temptation in national technology strategies to focus on visible objects.
The fab.
The processor.
The laptop.
The smartphone.
The robot.
The supercomputer.
Those are important.
But underneath all of them are thousands of invisible interfaces.
Those interfaces determine whether components can communicate, whether developers can reuse their work, whether hardware can be replaced, whether software survives a company disappearing and whether a new startup can enter the market without spending years rebuilding infrastructure.
That invisible layer may ultimately be one of the most strategically important parts of the ecosystem.
India does not need to build every statue.
It needs to build the plinth on which thousands of statues can stand.
A Different Definition of Technology Sovereignty
Technology sovereignty does not have to mean manufacturing everything domestically.
Nor does it mean rejecting technology developed elsewhere.
A more useful definition might be:
The ability to understand, integrate, maintain, modify and improve the technologies on which an economy depends.
Under that definition, contributing thousands of engineers to global open-source projects is itself a form of technological capability.
Maintaining critical drivers is capability.
Building open APIs is capability.
Creating compatibility test suites is capability.
Supporting RISC-V in Linux and development tools is capability.
Building NPU runtimes is capability.
Maintaining security infrastructure is capability.
Writing documentation is capability.
Making a new semiconductor usable by thousands of developers is capability.
The Bigger Vision
The most interesting outcome would not be an "Indian operating system."
It would not be an "Indian version" of every application.
It would not even necessarily be an exclusively Indian hardware stack.
It would be an ecosystem in which Indian engineers, companies, universities and startups become major contributors to the open technological infrastructure used by the world.
India could contribute silicon.
India could contribute software.
India could contribute standards.
India could contribute maintainers.
India could contribute testing infrastructure.
India could contribute documentation.
India could contribute reference designs.
And Indian companies could then build differentiated products on top of that commons.
That creates a virtuous cycle:
FUND THE COMMONS
↓
MAINTAIN THE CODE
↓
DEFINE OPEN APIs
↓
SUPPORT HARDWARE
↓
ENABLE STARTUPS
↓
CREATE PRODUCTS
↓
REACH MASS MARKET
↓
GENERATE DEMAND
↓
FUND THE COMMONS
Build the Road, Not Every Car
India's technology ambition should not be measured by how many things it builds completely from scratch.
A mature technology ecosystem is one where thousands of companies can build on top of shared foundations without repeatedly solving the same problems.
That is what the proposed consortium could provide.
The foundation provides the conditions.
Industry provides the money.
Engineers provide the work.
Universities provide research and talent.
Open communities provide technical governance.
Startups build the differentiated products.
Consumers provide the ultimate test.
The objective is not to make every company identical.
It is precisely the opposite.
Make the underlying infrastructure common so that the products can become more different.
Make the plumbing reusable so that the innovation can become more ambitious.
Make the APIs open so that hardware can compete.
Make the software modular so that startups can enter.
Make the maintenance sustainable so that the ecosystem survives.
And make the whole thing FLOSS so that the investment does not stop at India's borders.
The Principle
India's next technology revolution may not require one giant company capable of doing everything.
It may require something more subtle:
A permanent institution capable of building and maintaining the common technological layer upon which thousands of companies can innovate.
Build the plinth.
Let the semiconductor companies build the silicon.
Let the software communities build the tools.
Let the startups build the products.
Let manufacturers build the machines.
Let consumers decide which products succeed.
And let the improvements flow back into the commons.
Fund the commons. Keep the governance open. Standardise the plumbing. Let industry compete on the product.
That could turn FLOSS from something India merely consumes into something India helps maintain as a global industrial resource.
And perhaps that is the real opportunity:
India does not have to build every statue. It can become one of the world's great builders of the plinth.
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