Speaking at the launch ceremony on Tuesday in Islamabad for the Initiative to Nurture Semiconductors Professionals for Industry, Research and Education (INSPIRE), Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that it was a milestone in the country’s transition towards a knowledge-based economy. The programme is part of the Information Technology Ministry’s Semiconductor Roadmap, which foresees the country becoming part of the semiconductor market. The rapid growth of that market can be seen from the fact that while presently valued at $600 million a year, it is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2030. The INSPIRE programme is designed to develop a workforce which could meet the needs of tomorrow. The Planning Ministry is to allocate Rs 5 billion for this programme, which is supposed to bring academia and industry together.
There is the danger of jumping on the bandwagon when it is too late. Pakistan has not concentrated on educating its youth, and if the realization has seeped in that Pakistan can only stay ahead of its rivals if its people are educated enough to innovate, that is welcome. It did seem that the government, and all of its predecessors, were satisfied for Pakistan’s people to be more worker bees, capable only of imitation, whose only merit was that they could make things cheaper (but not necessarily better) than the original. This will not apply to chips, which are indirectly causing a headache for the USA, because while it is competitive in this technology, it does not have the monopoly position it enjoys. Worse for the USA, a lot of its monopoly positions rest on chips, where it does not have a monopoly, the importance of chips was highlighted by the recent revelation that the famous ChatGPT model had been bested by the Chinese XYZ, which was much cheaper because it relied on certain chips.
Pakistan must take the course of educating its populace so that they can survive in the workplace to come. It will not be good enough to make knockoffs, but it should be recognized that native talent will only go so far without the sort of education that will create an ecosystem where chip making can go on. It is worth noting that the National Assembly Standing Committee on Commerce in a recent hearing showed an interest in rare earth mint. Rare earths are the raw material at which chip making starts. So it makes sense to make them rather than just export the rare earths so that someone else can.
