4 ms·

Doesn’t chip fabrication require enormous amounts of water? How’s that going to play out when India is expected to start facing serious water availability issue

Doesn’t chip fabrication require enormous amounts of water? How’s that going to play out when India is expected to start facing serious water availability issues?

alephnerd 3y ago
India has an area of 1,269,219 square miles. Water Availability is a local issue largely isolated to the Deccan Plateau (Telangana, interior Andhra Pradesh/Rayalseema, interior Karnataka, interior Tamil Nadu, interior Maharashtra, southern Madhya Pradesh) and northern Rajasthan. Also, fabs tend to reuse water (as there are purity requirements so you'd be stupid from a margins standpoint to not recycle water used in a fab)
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  Would also note that one of India's greatest geopolitical weaknesses is its blockade potential. You don't want to find yourself limited to unguided munitions a few months into a shooting match.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    > blockade potential Not really. Most chips that India's MIC uses that aren't domestically fabricated comes from Tower Semiconductors' fabs in Israel, and the India's Eastern Naval Command has near complete control over the Eastern half of the Indian Ocean as there are massive naval and listening posts in Madagascar, Tanzania, Djibouti, Oman, UAE, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, etc -------- Also, Guided Munitions have been manufactured in India since the 2000s. Israeli ballistic missile manufacturers like Rafael, IAI, Elbit, etc did a 100% IP ToT to Indian PSUs and private sector defense contractors when the Chinese MIC was sanctioned for Tiananmen in the 90s. There was a whole corruption scandal over this in India that lead to the collapse of the Vajpayee Administration, and had some blowback in Israeli politics in the 2000s as well.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > the Eastern Naval Command has near complete control over the Eastern half of the Indian Ocean India's Eastern Fleet is not equipped to defeat a near-peer blockade. > Guided Munitions have been manufactured in India since the 2000s Yes. A critical input are semiconductors. That said, none of this is novel--which is why onshoring production has been a long-term priority.
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        > India's Eastern Fleet is not equipped to defeat a near-peer blockade What near peer is going to blockade the Eastern Indian Ocean? Outside of a couple of relatively minor naval and listening posts, the PLAN doesn't have a significant footprint in the Eastern Indian Ocean. > A critical input are semiconductors. That said, none of this is novel--which is why onshoring production has been a long-term priority Agreed, but you don't need leading edge nodes for this use-case, and India has been leveraging Tower Semiconductors fabs in Israel for this use-case for over 20 years at this point. P.S. How did you use italics? That's actually p cool
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > What near peer is going to blockade the Eastern Indian Ocean? This isn't how one plans for geopolitical risks. Each of the world's limited global and multi-regional blue-water navies (U.S., Russia, China, the U.K. and France) have the unilateral power to shut down India's economy. That's real leverage. > Outside of a couple of relatively minor naval and listening posts, the PLAN doesn't have a significant footprint in the Eastern Indian Ocean Agree. But it's clearly developing its capabilities. Not a coincidence that a ring of naval bases are cropping up around India. > How did you use italics? Put the text between asterisks.
        alephnerd 3y ago
        > This isn't how one plans for geopolitical risks People love to assume policymakers spend months and years on Grand Strategy, yet in action most of the hypotheticals that come up just don't make sense. It's not some big game of Civ or Risk. > blue-water navies PLAN is not a blue water navy yet and by most standards won't be for the next 7-8 years. > Not a coincidence that a ring of naval bases are cropping up around India Agreed, and it's not like India doesn't have similar bases in the Eastern Indian Ocean or in the SCS as well.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  Is there not a groundwater issue in Punjab?
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    Not severely. The issue is bad maintenance of rural agricultural water infra due to political promises 10 years ago for 100% free water for farmers in Punjab, and negotiating with neighboring Himachal Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir over water rights.
  - FraaJad 3y ago
    Except this plant is in Gujarat, and the distance from the southern most city I could find in Punjab to Dholera, GJ is 1048 km. https://imgur.com/a/HaN5Qb7 https://imgur.com/a/HaN5Qb7
    - selimthegrim 3y ago
      Oh ok the fab in Chandigarh had been mentioned
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        Chandigarh is connected to HP's water system. There are multiple dams just a couple miles away of CH.
seper8 3y ago
[flagged]
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Unconstructive and mean comment. You seem to be new to HN, but this kind of tone is frowned upon on this forum.
thisislife2 3y ago
Oh, it is going to be a huge issue in the future. Look at Bangalore. Once farmers too start facing water shortage, the shit will hit the fan. The Modi government is not known for its long-term thinking - in fact, they are very bad planners as they don't have the requisite experience. Their whole approach to running a government is to treat it like a corporate business - "hey, this thing will make us money and create good PR for us, let's do it!". They have no vision for capacity building. Look at the whole electoral bond scam the Modi government ran and used to enrich themselves - it was legalised corruption worse than the corporate lobbying that exists in America. They even combined it by giving lower ranking IT official (who tend to be more corrupt) extra-ordinary powers of investigation, and draconian powers to the Enforcement Directorate to seize property and used both to extort money from questionable and / or corrupt businesses. The last 10 years of Modi rule has seen the largest transfer of wealth from the public to the rich, with Modi personally acting as the middle-man and raking money from it too.
- huytersd 3y ago
  I don’t know about their long term thinking when it comes to policy but politically the BJP has meticulously planned and successfully carried out a takeover of the Indian political system in a strategy that spanned atleast 4 decades.
  - thisislife2 3y ago
    Not really. The political growth of the BJP is all artificial and due to external factors - from the loss of institutional political knowledge that the Congress suffered due to its split and the back to back death of their leaders (Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi) to the capitalist-right who were seeking a pliable alternative to the Congress. And today it is these capitalist-right who are in political control - as they are trying to create a US type military-industrial political system in India. Modi is just their puppet and is a fool who doesn't even realise it.
    - anukin 3y ago
      This is probably a rather misguided simplification of the Indian politics. The BJP plan almost started the tail end of 1980s. Capitalist right do not control the political leaders in India. At least that's not the case with current govt.
bee_rider 3y ago
I think it doesn’t need a ton of water in general, if you do it right. At least, IIRC, Intel’s big cutting edge fab in Arizona has been justified by pointing out that the water is mostly reusable.
nabla9 3y ago
Nowadays you can design closed-loop system if there is not enough water. It's more expensive, of course.

Doesn’t chip fabrication require enormous amounts of water? How’s that going to play out when India is expected to start facing serious water availability issues?

alephnerd 3y ago

India has an area of 1,269,219 square miles. Water Availability is a local issue largely isolated to the Deccan Plateau (Telangana, interior Andhra Pradesh/Rayalseema, interior Karnataka, interior Tamil Nadu, interior Maharashtra, southern Madhya Pradesh) and northern Rajasthan. Also, fabs tend to reuse water (as there are purity requirements so you'd be stupid from a margins standpoint to not recycle water used in a fab)

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
Would also note that one of India's greatest geopolitical weaknesses is its blockade potential. You don't want to find yourself limited to unguided munitions a few months into a shooting match.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > blockade potential Not really. Most chips that India's MIC uses that aren't domestically fabricated comes from Tower Semiconductors' fabs in Israel, and the India's Eastern Naval Command has near complete control over the Eastern half of the Indian Ocean as there are massive naval and listening posts in Madagascar, Tanzania, Djibouti, Oman, UAE, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, etc -------- Also, Guided Munitions have been manufactured in India since the 2000s. Israeli ballistic missile manufacturers like Rafael, IAI, Elbit, etc did a 100% IP ToT to Indian PSUs and private sector defense contractors when the Chinese MIC was sanctioned for Tiananmen in the 90s. There was a whole corruption scandal over this in India that lead to the collapse of the Vajpayee Administration, and had some blowback in Israeli politics in the 2000s as well.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > the Eastern Naval Command has near complete control over the Eastern half of the Indian Ocean India's Eastern Fleet is not equipped to defeat a near-peer blockade. > Guided Munitions have been manufactured in India since the 2000s Yes. A critical input are semiconductors. That said, none of this is novel--which is why onshoring production has been a long-term priority.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      > India's Eastern Fleet is not equipped to defeat a near-peer blockade What near peer is going to blockade the Eastern Indian Ocean? Outside of a couple of relatively minor naval and listening posts, the PLAN doesn't have a significant footprint in the Eastern Indian Ocean. > A critical input are semiconductors. That said, none of this is novel--which is why onshoring production has been a long-term priority Agreed, but you don't need leading edge nodes for this use-case, and India has been leveraging Tower Semiconductors fabs in Israel for this use-case for over 20 years at this point. P.S. How did you use italics? That's actually p cool
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > What near peer is going to blockade the Eastern Indian Ocean? This isn't how one plans for geopolitical risks. Each of the world's limited global and multi-regional blue-water navies (U.S., Russia, China, the U.K. and France) have the unilateral power to shut down India's economy. That's real leverage. > Outside of a couple of relatively minor naval and listening posts, the PLAN doesn't have a significant footprint in the Eastern Indian Ocean Agree. But it's clearly developing its capabilities. Not a coincidence that a ring of naval bases are cropping up around India. > How did you use italics? Put the text between asterisks.
        alephnerd 3y ago
        > This isn't how one plans for geopolitical risks People love to assume policymakers spend months and years on Grand Strategy, yet in action most of the hypotheticals that come up just don't make sense. It's not some big game of Civ or Risk. > blue-water navies PLAN is not a blue water navy yet and by most standards won't be for the next 7-8 years. > Not a coincidence that a ring of naval bases are cropping up around India Agreed, and it's not like India doesn't have similar bases in the Eastern Indian Ocean or in the SCS as well.
selimthegrim 3y ago
Is there not a groundwater issue in Punjab?
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Not severely. The issue is bad maintenance of rural agricultural water infra due to political promises 10 years ago for 100% free water for farmers in Punjab, and negotiating with neighboring Himachal Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir over water rights.
- FraaJad 3y ago
  Except this plant is in Gujarat, and the distance from the southern most city I could find in Punjab to Dholera, GJ is 1048 km. https://imgur.com/a/HaN5Qb7 https://imgur.com/a/HaN5Qb7
  - selimthegrim 3y ago
    Oh ok the fab in Chandigarh had been mentioned
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      Chandigarh is connected to HP's water system. There are multiple dams just a couple miles away of CH.

seper8 3y ago

[flagged]

alephnerd 3y ago
Unconstructive and mean comment. You seem to be new to HN, but this kind of tone is frowned upon on this forum.

thisislife2 3y ago

Oh, it is going to be a huge issue in the future. Look at Bangalore. Once farmers too start facing water shortage, the shit will hit the fan. The Modi government is not known for its long-term thinking - in fact, they are very bad planners as they don't have the requisite experience. Their whole approach to running a government is to treat it like a corporate business - "hey, this thing will make us money and create good PR for us, let's do it!". They have no vision for capacity building. Look at the whole electoral bond scam the Modi government ran and used to enrich themselves - it was legalised corruption worse than the corporate lobbying that exists in America. They even combined it by giving lower ranking IT official (who tend to be more corrupt) extra-ordinary powers of investigation, and draconian powers to the Enforcement Directorate to seize property and used both to extort money from questionable and / or corrupt businesses. The last 10 years of Modi rule has seen the largest transfer of wealth from the public to the rich, with Modi personally acting as the middle-man and raking money from it too.

huytersd 3y ago
I don’t know about their long term thinking when it comes to policy but politically the BJP has meticulously planned and successfully carried out a takeover of the Indian political system in a strategy that spanned atleast 4 decades.
- thisislife2 3y ago
  Not really. The political growth of the BJP is all artificial and due to external factors - from the loss of institutional political knowledge that the Congress suffered due to its split and the back to back death of their leaders (Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi) to the capitalist-right who were seeking a pliable alternative to the Congress. And today it is these capitalist-right who are in political control - as they are trying to create a US type military-industrial political system in India. Modi is just their puppet and is a fool who doesn't even realise it.
  - anukin 3y ago
    This is probably a rather misguided simplification of the Indian politics. The BJP plan almost started the tail end of 1980s. Capitalist right do not control the political leaders in India. At least that's not the case with current govt.

bee_rider 3y ago

I think it doesn’t need a ton of water in general, if you do it right. At least, IIRC, Intel’s big cutting edge fab in Arizona has been justified by pointing out that the water is mostly reusable.

nabla9 3y ago

Nowadays you can design closed-loop system if there is not enough water. It's more expensive, of course.