The 2004 film “Swadesh” was a landmark, depicting the journey of Mohan Bhargav, played brilliantly by Shah Rukh Khan, as he returns from NASA to his village, inspiring technological self-sufficiency among the villagers. However, the reality for approximately 650,000 villages in India, housing nearly 65% of the population, remains starkly different. These villages are primarily driven by an agricultural economy and are increasingly beset by extreme climatic events, such as floods and droughts, as well as limited access to affordable farm credit. This has resulted in a restless youth population aspiring to migrate to cities in search of elusive job opportunities and a better future.
Rebuilding the declining rural economy will become even more challenging with the advent of the intelligence explosion and advancements in AI and robotics. These breakthroughs threaten to disrupt how we live, work, and travel, potentially exacerbating inequality between those with access to advanced technology and those without.
The Intelligence Economy
By 2030, it is estimated that 7.5 billion connected humans will coexist with 30 billion intelligent and connected machines, creating $15.7 trillion in new economic value, according to PwC’s research. The rapid pace of this change is unsettling, even for someone like me, who has spent the last 15 years working closely with AI as an entrepreneur and investor. While we took over 300 years and two world wars to absorb the Industrial Revolution and another 50 years to digest the IT/Digital Revolution, the intelligence revolution will unfold over just 10-15 years. This rapid transition could lead to societal and geopolitical instability unless managed carefully. Building a “Viksit Bharat” without enabling our villages to transition from an agricultural economy to the intelligence economy will result in the proliferation of sprawling, unmanageable cities like Delhi, placing immense pressure on the fragile environment.
The only way forward is to leverage the opportunities presented by the intelligence economy to build a digital-physical twin of a sustainable developmental model for “Viksit Villages.”
This model should embody the following seven strategic pillars of technological innovation:
Advanced Infrastructure: Intelligent 5G/6G-connected utilities managing air, water, waste, and mobility grids, powered by renewable energy sources such as solar and waste-to-energy systems.
Next-Generation Agriculture: Precision farming and automated agribots connected to global autonomous supply chains.
Precision Manufacturing : Localized micro-manufacturing driven by versatile robots.
Personalized Intelligent Healthcare and Education: Future-ready services using XR devices and AI co-explorers.
Intelligence-Driven Local Industries: Remote digital work for data annotations and monitoring service bots.
Digital Public Governance: Local self-governance with AI courts for rapid justice at the district level.
Sustainable Development: Integrating environmental, social, mental, and spiritual growth for a man-machine society.
The Moonshot Approach
Achieving this ambitious vision requires adopting a “moonshot” approach, similar to John F. Kennedy’s vision of reaching the moon, which fueled the industrial economy and military complex of the USA. Bengaluru, with its talent and capital for research and development, emerges as a suitable location for this initiative. Existing Public Sector Units (PSUs) in need of technological rejuvenation, such as the HMT campus in Bengaluru, could serve as initial launchpads.
The HMT campus, envisioned as a 400-acre site capable of housing 10,000 people, could host innovation zones for AI and robotics startups, a global research institute, outsourcing hubs for data annotations, AI compute clusters, and upskilling zones for the workforce. This site could serve as a pilot hub for implementing the “Viksit Village” model in nearby Mandya district.
Scaling Up Development
Transforming both the ailing PSUs and dormant villages with the “Viksit Village” technological innovations will make the vision of “Viksit Bharat” a reality. Once the developmental model is validated at the pilot site, it can be expanded to initially 100 villages, and eventually scaled to all 650,000-plus villages in India. This bottom-up approach, focused on impact and policy feedback, may prove more effective than top-down execution through incentives and policy measures.
The resulting technological innovation from this endeavor will position India as a global leader in sustainable technologies, benefiting not only the country but also the world. This journey could eventually inspire a sequel to “Swadesh,” where the hero brings “Viksit Village” technologies from India back to the USA, contributing to global sustainability.
