SID india at the close of 2025 and potential of display beyond just screens in energy sector

I thank society for information display, India chapter for organizing a series of high impact events throughout the year. Today the members gathered for one final time in 2025 looking back at the year and planning for what's to come ahead.

SID India has largely succeeded in building global connections and positioning India to manufacture display tech in the future. On lab scale promising results for OLED technologies have already been obtained and things are looking bright with regards to an actual display fab.

Many challenges were identified as potential roadblocks and among them workforce development was critical. Training people to be able to operate sophisticated machines in a fab is no easy task especially when the industrial presence is minimal making it a chicken and egg problem. However the enthusiastic response of students & their willingness to learn new technologies infused optimism among the members.

At events organised by SID I had the opportunity to network with professionals in the display industry from around the world. This is a photo from SID conference during semicon India. Also read about the post conference gathering for discussion on India's Electronic Component Manufacturing Scheme milestones

Reminiscing about the past one of the speakers during the presentation mentioned that India was the leading manufacturer of CRT Tvs but a few wrong investment decisions uprooted the industry as transition to leds never happened. It was clear that the society was determined to avert this fate the second time.

This also got me thinking that while trends keep on changing the fundamental technology behind a product never truly dies. CRT TVs may not be popular but cathode rays or electron beams are highly valuable in microscopy,lithography and in generation of X rays. Research in electron beams and closely related Ion, plasma beams are advancing our capabilities in materials processing and it's quite possible that these technologies could feature heavily in the next generation of electronics. It is important to continue research in this space even as display trends pull us in a different direction.

I was also fascinated by some of the alternative applications of the display technologies that are important in critical sectors like energy. One of the obvious ones is the highly transparent glass making tech that is used in solar panels in addition to ultra transparent substrates on which future flexible light harvesters could be fabricated.

But what's most attractive are fresnel lenses that the industry had developed for flat screen led TVs. These lenses are lightweight highly efficient solar concentrators that can collimate light with around 90% efficiency. An innovation that started in display now has application in energy systems. This is a tremendous opportunity that has the potential of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs ,revolutionising thermal storage energy systems and addressing one of the biggest challenges facing humanity today—energy. I hope the display industry recognises the impact it can have. I enthusiastically look forward to attending more SID events in 2026.

Akshat Jiwan Sharma

Strategy Consultant--Innovation/ Materials science/International relations/Telecommunications/Digital Transformation/Partnerships

Mobile/whatsapp:+919654119771

email:getellobed@gmail.com

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Akshat Jiwan Sharma

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