Vaishnaw says an AI-law consultation is weeks away and sets 23 October 2028 for an Indian phone brand

Union electronics and information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday that the government would publish a consultation paper on artificial intelligence within weeks, and that India should have a phone designed, manufactured and branded in the country by 23 October 2028.

He was speaking at the NDTV World Summit in New Delhi. The Hindu BusinessLine, in a PTI report, and NDTV Profit both carried the remarks. He did not release a draft law, and he gave no date for a bill, NDTV Profit reported.

“Today the time has come when the risks of AI have crossed a threshold where we should come up with a law and new regulations. Harms from the new technology can be regulated,” he said, according to BusinessLine. “We will come up with a consultation paper in the coming weeks. We are drafting the consultation paper, and that paper will gather inputs from society, citizens and industry.”

NDTV Profit reported that he wants those views from citizens, industry and experts before the government settles an approach. AI was spreading quickly through banking, manufacturing, services and insurance, he said. The biggest ecosystems should share some basic principles even while competing, and people should stay in control of models, agents, processes and outcomes, with a way to stop a system that runs out of control. He did not say whether that means a new law or a change to one already on the books.

On phones, he told the room to mark the day. “This is 23rd October 2026. Please note it: 23rd October 2028. You will have Indian design, Indian manufactured, Indian brand of mobile phones,” BusinessLine quoted him. The Economic Times reported the same date for a phone designed, manufactured and branded in India.

ET also reported that an Indian company had designed a phone motherboard, that one of the largest telecom providers in the United States had chosen the design, and that a 5G-plus phone had been delivered. He named neither firm, and he put the work at three and a half years.

The chip lines in the two papers do not describe one stage. BusinessLine has him saying the first made-in-India chip will be ready in 2028. ET has him saying five plants have been in commercial production since January 2022, a sixth will be inaugurated soon, and Indian-made chips already go to Japan, the United States and Europe. The first mission aimed at three plants, he said, and India now had 15. Both papers said 12 from that mission would be finished soon.

The path ET reported runs from 28-nanometre output through 14 nanometres and then 5, to 3-nanometre chips by 2035. About 75 percent of chips in goods such as refrigerators, cars and phones sit between 28 and 19 nanometres, he said, a high-volume band whose manufacture was concentrating in one country he did not name. A 28-nanometre fabrication plant was his answer to that, and the Tata project at Dholera was moving ahead.

Semicon 2.0, the next phase, puts design ahead of materials and equipment. About 20 percent of the world’s chip-design engineers are already in India, he said, backed by more than 300 universities. ET reported his markers for the phase: at least three makers of advanced equipment manufacturing and designing here, five makers of highly pure chemicals and gases, and deep-tech startups able to raise venture capital rising from about 20 to 200.

BusinessLine also quoted him on trade. Electronics as an Indian export was hard to imagine 12 years ago, he said, and was “already the third” and would soon be “the second.”