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SEPTEMBER 2025 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 17 ernment initiatives, including production- linked incentive (PLI) programs, aim to attract foreign investment and promote local production of both finished goods and critical components. Despite these efforts, input dependency remains a significant constraint. As long as the majority of components are imported, India's manufacturing base will remain exposed to global supply chain disruptions and trade frictions. Reducing this reliance will require sustained investment in semi- conductor fabrication, precision engineering, and other upstream industries. India also faces infrastructure and logistics challenges that may slow its transition from final assembler to component producer. Labor cost ad- vantages alone will not be enough to compete with more advanced manufacturing ecosystems in East and Southeast Asia. " " India's rapid rise as a source of finished electronics marks a meaningful shift in the global supply chain. India's rapid rise as a source of finished electron- ics marks a meaningful shift in the global supply chain. It has emerged as a credible alternative for final assembly, particularly for global brands seeking to diversify beyond China. However, this growth remains heavily reliant on imported inputs, especially from China and other Asian suppliers. To move up the value chain and improve long-term resilience, India will need to enhance its domestic capabilities in component production while main- taining open and diversified access to international suppliers. SMT007 The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced AI- focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as devel- oping new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manu- facturing innovations. Designed from the ground up for AI, Nexus will give researchers across the country access to ad- vanced computing tools through a simple, user-friendly interface. It will support work in many fields, including climate science, health, aerospace, and robotics. "The Nexus system's novel ap- proach combining support for per- sistent scientific services with more traditional high-performance computing will enable new science and AI workflows that will acceler- ate the time to scientific discov- ery," said Katie Antypas, National Science Founda- tion director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfra- structure. "We look forward to adding Nexus to NSF's portfolio of advanced com- puting capabilities for the research community." Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases, to under- standing how the brain works, to engineering quantum materials. Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion opera- tions per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continu- ously performing 50 million calcu- lations every second. Georgia Tech is building Nexus in partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing Appli- cations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which runs several of the country's top aca- demic supercomputers. The two institutions will link their systems through a new high-speed net- work, creating a national research infrastructure. (Source: Georgia Tech) Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer