Sridhar Vembu Warns India Against ‘Digital Colonialism’, Urges Push for Tech Sovereignty
Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu urges India to reduce foreign tech dependence, warning digital reliance threatens national sovereignty and long-term economic resilience.
As debates around national security evolve beyond borders and weapons, Zoho founder and chief scientist Sridhar Vembu believes the next frontier of sovereignty lies in technology. In a strongly worded message, he has drawn a historical comparison that has sparked fresh discussion: global Big Tech firms, he argues, resemble the East India Company in how they dominate and extract value from countries like India.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Vembu compared today’s foreign technology giants to colonial-era trading powers, suggesting that excessive reliance on overseas platforms risks weakening India’s economic independence and digital autonomy.
“The very definition of a sovereign nation should now include technology sovereignty,” wrote Vembu. “Big Tech now is the New East India company and Europeans are now waking up to it. History seems to rhyme with irony.”
According to Vembu, companies such as Google, Meta, Amazon, OpenAI and others benefit enormously from Indian markets by collecting data and revenue while critical infrastructure remains under foreign control. He warns that this dynamic allows wealth and strategic advantage to flow out of the country, leaving India dependent on external providers for essential services.
For him, reducing this dependence is no longer optional. Instead, it is a strategic necessity tied directly to national security and long-term prosperity. He points to Europe’s growing efforts toward digital independence as an example India could follow. Countries like France are reportedly considering replacing tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom with homegrown or regional alternatives to protect data and reduce foreign reliance.
This isn’t the first time Vembu has advocated for technological self-reliance. He has consistently argued that India must build and own its full technology stack — from enterprise software to deeper hardware capabilities — if it wants to protect its interests in a rapidly digitising world. Beyond concerns over privacy and control, he believes overdependence also limits India’s ability to innovate and create foundational products.
Speaking recently to a famous publication, he reiterated that technology sovereignty has become “absolutely vital” for any nation that wants genuine independence.
His concerns extend to hardware and semiconductor supply chains as well. Citing global chip shortages and export restrictions, Vembu has warned that even countries willing to pay may not always gain access to critical technologies.
“All that what we end up doing is being a big team or a training ground for Silicon Valley. We sell our raw material cheap — in our case, brains — and buy the finished products at a high price, which are the technology products. This is colonial economics to the core,” Vembu had said. “All of India can get only 50,000 chips (from Nvidia), no matter whether we are ready to pay or not. This is basically a form of digital colonialism, and that’s why we should reject this.”
As India strengthens its digital economy, Vembu’s message is clear: true independence in the modern age must include control over the technologies that power everyday life.
