Minister of State for Electronics and IT Alphons Kannanthanam on Tuesday warned about the dangers of relying too much on technology developed abroad as it takes only a small code for programs and gadgets to collect information and even shut down systems.
Instead, he said, Indian IT companies must increase their product offerings rather than simply catering to the back-end operations of foreign companies.
“It’s a very scary world, where a manufacturer can put a little code to collect information and even shut down systems,” Mr Kannanthanam said while speaking at a CII summit on the Internet of Things. “Why is our indigenous product sector so small? Can we survive just doing back end for other countries? This is deeply worrying.”
According to Mr Kannanthanam, Forbes estimates 25 billion IoT connected devices by 2020, while CISCO pegs that number at 50 billion. Gartner, he said, predicts that IoT will result in an economic benefit of nearly $2 trillion by 2020 while CISCO predicts a value of $14.4 trillion by 2022.
“While the numbers may vary, it is clear that the size of IoT industry is huge and India and Indian electronics industry must take maximum advantage of this opportunity,” he said.
Mr Kannanthanam also urged all the conference participants, comprising experts from leading IT companies, to visit him in his office with suggestions and ideas for this.