Context

• The ability to capture, store and model data is fueling the technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution, which many believe will lead to a future owned by corporations.
• To secure India’s active involvement in the fourth industrial revolution, it will be necessary to restructure vital domestic industries and strengthen institutional capability. 

Fourth Industrial Revolution

• The Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0, conceptualizes rapid change to technology, industries, and societal patterns and processes due to increasing interconnectivity and smart automation.
• The term 4IR was coined by Klaus Schwab, executive chairperson of the World Economic Forum (WEF), when he described it as an industrial revolution that “does not change what we are doing, but changes us”

Emerging Technologies

• Fourth industrial revolution (4IR), simply put, is the use of different technologies to blur the boundaries between the digital, physical and biological worlds.
• US researchers unveiled a pacemaker which monitors vitals such as temperature, oxygen levels and the heart’s electrical activity that dissolves in the human body after completing its job. The pacemaker is a near-perfect example of the ongoing 4IR.
• They have also demonstrated the reproductive ability of the first living robot, called xenobots, created from the stem cells of the African clawed frog useful for tasks like cleaning up microplastics and regrowing or replacing dead cells and tissues inside human bodies

Industrial Revolutions so far

• The first industrial revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production (1800s).  The second used electric power to create mass production (early 1900s). The third used electronics and information technology to automate production (late 1900s).
• The 4IR, which is building on the third revolution, has data at its core. It is a collection of nine technologies: cloud computing, big data, augmented reality, system integration, autonomous robots, cybersecurity, simulation, additive manufacturing, and the internet of things (IoT).

Indian initiatives for 4IR

• The Union Ministry of Heavy Industries launched the Smart Advanced Manufacturing and Rapid Transformation Hub (Samarth) scheme, which brings together manufacturers, vendors, and customers to make them aware of 4IR technologies.
• Drone Shakti, will encourage startups that will facilitate the use of drones in land surveying, spraying insecticides and digitization of land records.
• In the field of education, Desh Stack ecosystem would be announced for skilling, re-skilling, and upskilling through online training.
• India is also exploring digital twin technology for creating models. A digital twin means creating a highly complex virtual model that is the exact counterpart (or twin) of a physical thing, which can be anything from a car, building or even a person.

Center for fourth industrial revolution (C4IR)

• The World Economic Forum (WEF) has launched a Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) in India. C4IR works on three important pillars.
  • The first is the 4IR technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, blockchain and others.
  • The second focus is on public-private cooperation.
  • The third pillar is a multi-stakeholder partnership involving government, industries, start-ups, civil society, and consumers for promoting inclusiveness.

Concerns

• There are fears that technological development will lead to job destruction. For example, Automation could be harmful for Indian Railways, with 1.4 million jobs, which is the largest employer in India and the eighth largest in the world.
• Experts warn that as the technologies mature, the demand for jobs such as artificial intelligence engineers, data scientists and robot maintenance workers, will also shrink.
• 5G technology that will propel the 4IR forward has health and environment which have not been sufficiently addressed
• Developing and least developed countries lack the data framework and infrastructure necessary for 4IR.
• There are other critical concerns surrounding safety, ethics and the short- and long-term socio-economic impacts that remain unanswered.

Way Forward

• The success of the 4IR rests on policies and socio-economic acceptance. The need of the hour is a paradigm shift where processes are developed to plug the overall challenges with 4IR to make them more inclusive and acceptable to all.