莫迪演讲聚焦芯片与核电，推动印度2047年成为发达国家

Joining us right now from New Delhi, Bloomberg News senior reporter Dan Strumpf. Dan, good to have you here with Joe and me and Lisa this morning. We gotta talk about this. So go back to 1947. That's when India became independent after, what, two hundred years of rule by Britain. Country is increasingly a force to reckon with. What stood out in this speech from Modi that will get them there? Yeah. So, this was very much a a forward looking speech, a speech about India's economy, a speech about India's development.

As you said, the really the sort of top line takeaway was a sort of reiteration of this long standing goal that this government has, which is to sort of make India, a developed country by 2047. That is the hundred year centenary, anniversary of, India's independence. Being a developed country, you know, it's it's a bit of a term of art. Right? Mhmm. But it really means, you know, raising up the economy, making sure that the country is technologically competitive, that its companies and, businesses and and financial institutions are competitive, that its people are educated at a high level.

And so that was really the the the big takeaway from the speech and and some really, really high level ambitions set, set out to sort of to sort of get there. High level indeed, Dan. The country will have up to eight more chip plants, he said, in the next seven to eight years. That alone is something The United States can't even seem to do. Can they pull it off in India? Well, you know, it is very ambitious. Right? And India is already well on its way, actually, in in when it comes to, the chip industry.

I mean Uh-huh. It's primarily a force right now in chip assembly, which is which is on the lower end of, this sort of value chain when it comes to chips. But getting there, is is is a is a big priority, and it really speaks to, this high level ambition that India has to be a technological force to be reckoned with. So, I mean, it's not just chips, but it's AI. It's Five nuclear reactors. Assembly. That's right. Nuclear nuclear power was a big highlight of this of this feature.

Are they as power hungry as we are because of AI development? Oh, I mean, totally. I mean, this is this is also a big priority for India is to become a big data center hub. And as as we all know, I mean, these data centers are enormous hogs of power. And so, you know, I mean, building more nuclear capacity is a huge sort of, you know, plank in this pillar to kinda get there and be be a player in AI. And so that goal for nuclear power is actually to to it it's a 100 gigawatts, which is 11 times the current capacity in India.

But, you know, this is the goal, and and and that's where they wanna get to. Hey. You know, I do think about, though, the youth problems that we see around the world. We certainly see it here in The United States, folks that can't find jobs, come out of with a college education, even those that do not. India has seen also its share of issues. How is it dealing with that? How does it create some programs and policies that actually address that significantly?

They've been dealing with some protests recently, not necessarily directly related, but this is certainly an issue for them. Well, no. I mean, it it it really is quite quite related, and it and it tied into, some of the some of the high points of today's speech. You're right. I mean, India is just coming off this, weeks long protest movement. I mean, you can see that you've got some of that footage right there. A lot of these protests got very heated, very violent.

It was led by this youth this sort of student led movement called the cockroach jhanta party, which was kind of the what's what began as a kind of a a satire, but turned into a really powerful student led movement protesting sort of shortcomings in the country's education system, feelings of frustration that young people are not getting a payoff in terms of employment, in terms of opportunities from the education that they're getting, and, you know, a sense in India that young people are feeling a bit left down, left out and and let down.

And you do have a real unemployment crisis in India generally, but it's it's particularly acute among young people. Something like 40% of young graduates in India with a college degree can't find work. And so, you know, that's a real problem, of course, for people's livelihoods. But it's a big political problem for this country as well because, I mean, we all know that, you know, young people are out of work without without much to do.

This can be a problem for any government. And so so so so this was part of the speech. I mean, Modi does want to address this problem. He has been taking steps to, to to show that he's listening to these young people. There was a major announcement. Maybe the biggest announcement from today's speech was, this announcement to introduce free coaching for young people for who were taking competitive exams. And so that's kind of one way that the government is trying to sort of listen to the young people and and and and show that it is it is kind of hearing them and and and and, you know, attentive to this jobs crisis.

We just got thirty seconds left, Dan. Self reliance came up repeatedly in this address. Who does India not want to be reliant upon? It's a great question, and it's a huge it's a huge highlight for the government these days. You know, India is a major importer of lots of important goods. It's a huge oil importer. Yep. It's a huge importer of weapons of defense. It's the world's second largest importer of weapons, in fact.

And so it's a big priority for this government to be more self reliant in these areas, to be more self reliant in manufacturing, and to overall be a a stronger, more self reliant economy.