I was not expecting to be proven correct so soon.
It took an export-control letter to convince many in India of just how vulnerable the country is to the US technological squeeze. I predicted this exact scenario in my article last month.
India signed up to Pax Silica in February, hoping to secure a seat in the US-led tech bloc. However, just four months later, it has lost access to frontier models along with everyone else.
As countries around the world find themselves caught off guard today, Trump’s 2018 tech and trade war against China has turned out to be a blessing in disguise — both for China and for the rest of the globe.
For much of the world, Chinese open-source models such as Qwen and DeepSeek have suddenly become the default alternatives to US-controlled AI systems.
Now that the US, rather than China, has emerged as the single greatest threat to global tech supply chains, India finds itself once again in the dangerously vulnerable position of a blood bag.
Anyone in India still harboring delusions about the US should wake up. The Indian government should move quickly to ensure the country embraces smaller models — both Indian and Chinese open-source ones — as soon as possible.
thewire.in/diplomacy/chess-p…