'I look to China as gurus': Zoho's Sridhar Vembu

India should adopt a more strategic approach to technological development by looking to China as a model, rather than solely focusing on providing software services to global corporations, according to Zoho's co-founder and chief scientist, Sridhar Vembu. Addressing a gathering at YourStory's TechSparks 2026 in Bengaluru, Vembu highlighted that China has successfully owned critical technologies, enabling it to generate economic value and foster globally competitive businesses.

Vembu emphasized that China's technology sector offers more valuable lessons than the United States. He noted that India should draw inspiration from East Asian economies such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China, which developed robust technology industries despite resource, population density, and economic development constraints.

A key point Vembu made was the distinction between developing technology for others and owning the intellectual property that generates long-term economic value. He pointed out that India contributes a significant portion of engineering work for major global tech companies but does not reap a proportional share of the profits. Vembu cited estimates suggesting that around 40-50% of NVIDIA's chip design work, including verification, occurs in India, along with substantial software development for companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and Cisco.

He argued that if India were to capture a larger share of the value generated from these collaborations, its GDP could potentially double or triple in size. Vembu contrasted India's situation with China's, which invested in developing domestic technology platforms even when it initially trailed behind its global competitors. He cited examples like Baidu and WeChat, which have become globally competitive platforms.

Vembu stressed that building a strong foundation of technology is essential before advancing to more sophisticated innovations. For India, the lesson is to invest in underlying technologies rather than solely focusing on developing the newest AI models. Vembu acknowledged that AI could soon write better code than a significant portion of software engineers and predicted that AI could eventually outperform most software engineers within three to six months.

He compared the rise of software development to the handloom industry before mechanization, warning that AI could dramatically reduce the number of engineers needed to build software. However, instead of laying off employees in response to automation, Vembu stated that Zoho is redeploying its engineers to work on other technology capabilities.

Vembu believes that India must harness its engineering capabilities to build more of the underlying technology itself, drawing from China's experience as a long-term strategy. He emphasized that the new technological order requires India to learn how to solve its own problems.