New Delhi [India], October 29 : Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL) co-founder Ajai Chowdhry has raised serious concerns about Indian data security and sovereignty amid the widespread use of Chinese-made electronics in India and around the world.
The HCL co-founder has alleged that chips, CCTVs, and even Biometric Attendance Systems (BAC) can transmit Indian data back to China, posing serious threats to national security and local data protection.
In an interview with ANI, Chowdhry, who has served on various government committees since 1999 and is currently the Chairman of the National Quantum Mission, called for a ban on the import of Chinese chips, alleging that each piece of hardware has a 'backdoor' to enable secret data transmission abroad.
He further criticised India having what he called 'screwdriver jobs', saying that smartphones are getting manufactured in China and then assembly kits are sent to India to complete the smartphones.
"Every product that you see around you today is Chinese chips. Two years ago, actually, if you remember, when (Prime Minister) Modi came in, he said, I want an attendance machine in every central government office...Two years ago, an intelligence agency was asked to look at them. And they found that all the data had gone back to China. What does that mean? All central government officers and their wives, and everyone whose name was on that attendance machine, have gone back to China. And the same is true for CCTVs. All CCTVs all over the country, every street, everything is known to the Chinese today because every CCTV has Chinese chips. So it's a very serious situation," Chowdhry told ANI.
The idea of banning chips has already been recommended to the Central government, and will also help build Indian industries, just as the Chinese government did previously and helped proliferate the market, Chowdhry said.
"We've given the recommendations that we now need systems, chips, fabs, and packaging, and then creating the market. See, how do you create a market? How did China do it? The way China did it was to ban everything else. So, that market automatically got created. So, the strategy that I have suggested to the government is to ban Chinese chips. And the reason why we should ban Chinese chips is that they're very dangerous to import. Each of those Chinese chips will have backdoors. And these backdoors can transmit data back to China," the HCL co-founder added.
Colloquially known as the 'Father of Indian Hardware' for helping propel the indigenous hardware industry in the late 1970s, he called for following the footsteps of the US and Europe in banning CCTVs with Chinese chips, and encouraging domestic production instead.
"The US does not allow CCTVs from China. Europe doesn't allow. Everybody has created their own capability. And we can today design for ourselves and export. Okay. But we have not done it," he added.
In 2024, certain media reports stated that Intelligence agencies were probing the possibility of a breach of Biometric Attendance Systems (BAS) in thousands of government offices after it was found that companies that supplied the systems had used Chinese-origin parts. However, no official government report has been released, and the claims have not been substantiated.
The HCL co-founder further criticised how India has been exploited in the manufacturing sector through "screwdriver jobs", in which disassembled smartphone kits are sent from China and assembled in India.
"Today, the total market of phones in this country is 190 million a year. Of that, 150 million are smartphones. Out of that 150 million, 60% are Chinese. So what do you do? The balance is between Samsung and Apple, but the Chinese are happily having this market. That manufacturing is all nonsense. It's just putting it together. That is all screwdriver technology. You know what happens: when an Apple or Samsung phone is made in India, the kits come from China. They are screwdrivered and sent," he said.
This idea of 'screwdriver jobs' also extends to drone manufacturing, as India currently only assembles drones sent here. He pointed out that with drone manufacturing, Chinese products are masked by being labelled as from Singapore.
"Whatever we do in drones today, everything is China. We are assembling drones. We don't design anything. None of the drone's interior today is made by us. Very few companies are doing it. What the Chinese are doing is rebranding their products as Singapore products. Even the chips are rebranded. They put a new stamp on it in Singapore and claim it's made there. Actually, it's Chinese," he mentioned.
To counter China's dominance in the electronics market and encourage domestic manufacturing, Chowdhry said there is a need to develop an 'Indian phone'. He highlighted how HCL itself has been an example of developing hardware indigenously. Proposals for encouraging research in that domain.
"I've been telling the government for a while, we must have an India phone. And the India phone we must create must have strong security so that the data cannot be recovered. And it's possible to do. Right now, a couple of us are putting together a proposal for the government to create an India phone. Fine, create an India phone," he said.
The HCL co-founder stressed the need to shift from a service-oriented to a product-oriented economy, as this will help employ engineers and scientists, including giving diaspora Indians opportunities to contribute to India. He said that the Research, Development, and Innovation Scheme (RDI) will also help with developing technologies.
RDI is a Department of Science & Technology (DST) initiative approved by the Union Cabinet on July 1, 2025. With a total outlay of Rs 1 lakh crore, the initiative aims to catalyse private-sector participation in high-impact R&D, strengthen India's capabilities in strategic technologies, and promote technological self-reliance, aligning with the nation's long-term innovation and Atmanirbhar Bharat vision.