On July 31, 2012, a massive blackout swept across northeast India. At 1 pm local time, a power line in the state of Madhya Pradesh became overloaded and tripped out. As the supply grid struggled to pick up the slack, other lines went down. By 1:03, a cascading series of failures had pushed the electricity supply grid into a state of chaos, resulting in the largest blackout in human history. More than an estimated 600 million people lost power temporarily as a result of the collapse.
This blackout is a stark reminder of how vulnerable we all are to chaotic collapse around the many complex technological systems we rely on. Yet we continue to develop powerful new technologies at a rapid rate, with little thought as to how their very complexity and interconnectedness may cause them to unravel in the future. (Andrew Maynard, The Conversation)
The promise of new and rapidly evolving technology is of utmost interest to the world’s largest continent, but these technologies pose security, political, business, and ethical risks. Through our research and by acting as a catalyst for other research organisations we want to shine a light on the nature of these challenges posed by these emerging technologies.