Zoho's Sridhar Vembu Reveals Why India Must Build Technology and Keep IP

We must build technology and keep intellectual property here so that value accrues to the nation, Zoho Co-Founder Sridhar Vembu

New Delhi, November 12

"We want to have a global outlook. We want to be a trading nation. But to be trading on equal terms, we need capabilities. Many people, however, do not understand it. The fact that you can buy it does not make you resilient; additionally, a value mismatch is present. I mean, the classic example I give is that you cannot export only oil and buy all technologies. Middle Eastern nations realise it now. Similarly, we cannot export low-value-added products and buy high-value-added products all the time, which, in fact, means we accept that our value addition will be low if we accept the terms of trade. We accept a relatively low income status," he said in an exclusive interview with ANI.

Drawing a parallel with oil-dependent economies, he stated, "We want to become a higher-income economy; we have to focus on value addition. That means inventing all of this technology.... Not that we use 'us'... because we are made in India alone. The fact is, we have to build all this in India. And Zoho is one of the companies doing it. I'm sure there'll be many other companies. There needs to be many other companies building all of this in India. And then we can play on a level playing field globally in terms of trade."

Responding to a question on how Indian companies can innovate in AI without access to vast user data like global giants Google and Meta, Zoho co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu said the real issue is not just data localisation but ownership of intellectual property (IP), warning that without it, India will remain trapped in low-value addition and low-income status.

"The critical question now is not just having a data centre in India, that's important. But where is IP held? Where is the intellectual property (IP) held? Because there are two. One is economic....Another is that Intellectual property is where all the value addition is going. If intellectual property (IP) is held somewhere else, then the value is going there."

He further explained, "And just earlier, as I explained, when we automatically accept low value addition status, therefore low income status as a nation. That means the intellectual property and the value accruing to intellectual property have to be here for us to experience decent prosperity, prosperity for all"

Vembu asserted that government support is not essential for building and inventing technology in most areas, highlighting his company's journey without such backing and drawing parallels with China's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

"Zoho has created all of these products, and it did not have any government support. And I'm saying that government support is not required to build or invent technology in most areas. In certain very specialised areas, you may need it. But most of the areas it's not true," he said.

He emphasised that even in China, widespread innovation stemmed from entrepreneurs' self-belief rather than blanket state aid.

"Even in China, it is not true that the government supported all of this. In China, many entrepreneurs jumped in as they had a conducive environment in general, but more importantly, the Chinese believed in themselves. We have to believe in ourselves, and for that, I have also said this many times, we have to revive our languages. I do not believe any nation has come up on the global stage by using a foreign language in its discourse. We have to revive our languages, our mother tongues. It's essential. And each of our states has sufficient population to actually fully revive the language. And we can have a linked language, but we cannot have the national discourse happening in English, like what is happening today," he said.

Vembu argued that relying on English for national discourse excludes a vast talent pool, estimating that 70-80 per cent of potential contributors are sidelined.

"To me, that's an important part of this, because I tell you why it's important. We are leaving out maybe 70, 80 80% of the talent pool outside the door, looking in. That is, if you go to rural Tamil Nadu or rural Uttar Pradesh, anywhere, the number of people who can fluently speak Hindi and participate in this sector is relatively small. We are focused on bringing them in today only. Part of my rural push is also to ensure that students who are not comfortable with English can build technology. That's very important, and it is also the way we can build all this," he stated.

— ANI