India has grand plans for its semi-conductor industry. The country is a relatively new entrant to the world of chip manufacturing, dominated by Taiwan, South Korea, and the US. Over the last few years, India has undertaken an unprecedented push for investments in the field. “Our dream is that every device in the world will have an Indian-made chip,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an event in September 2024.

In recent years, the East India Company (EIC)—which conquered and ruled large parts of India over the 18th and 19th centuries—has been compared to companies like Google and Meta. Both today’s Big Tech firms as well as the EIC were profit-hungry corporations, not sovereign entities, that nevertheless had immense influence at a global scale and often wielded their powers in deeply exploitative ways.

We are in the midst of global order change. The current order, the West-centric international order of the past two centuries, has been a core-periphery world given the vast power asymmetries between the West and the rest as well as the westward orientation of the rest of the world. However, the contemporary rise of Asia is heralding a new world order. While the shape of the emerging world order is a much-debated issue in scholarly and policy circles, the rise of China is at the vanguard of this transformation.

Advances in visual effects (VFX) technology are producing spectacular imagery in Indian blockbusters. In Ponniyin Selvan (Mani Ratnam, 2022), a 10th century kingdom comes back to life. In Adipurush (Om Raut, 2023), we witness the burning of mythical Lanka. In Pathaan (Siddharth Anand, 2023), Shah Rukh Khan flies in and out of a canyon valley. These images are entirely computer-generated or artfully blend computer-generated imagery (CGI) with live-action photography.