India 'primed' for scientific breakthroughs, say Nobel laureates MacMillan and Robinson

Two Nobel laureates warn of global change. They stress balancing creativity, freedom, and science for a sustainable future. One laureate notes China's economic success but questions its long-term sustainability. He suggests North Korea might be a better model for China's future. The other laureate advises focusing on valuable science, not just awards.

Two Nobel laureates, chemist David MacMillan and economist James A Robinson, cautioned that the world is at a moment of institutional and technological churn, where countries must balance creativity, political freedom and scientific investment to shape a sustainable future. The two spoke to The Times of India on Wednesday, on the sidelines of the Nobel Prize Dialogue India 2025 organised by Tata Trusts.

Robinson, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on institutions and prosperity, said the “inflection point” he has previously described is less about China's rise and more about the erosion of the liberal model in the United States. “The success of China is part of that,” he told TOI, “but the real challenge is internal — how you can have this ideology of equality when the world is so ridiculously unequal.”

Robinson said the dynamism of China's economy stems from its people's capacity to “dream, create and build,” even within an authoritarian system. However, he warned that such a balance cannot last indefinitely. “You can't have a consolidated, personalistic dictatorship with an economy that allows for all that innovation. Something has to give,” he said, adding that unlike South Korea and Taiwan, where political systems eventually opened up, China's Communist Party appears unwilling to loosen control. “North Korea is a better model of what China would look like,” he said.

MacMillan, who won the 2021 Chemistry Nobel for developing asymmetric organocatalysis, urged countries not to pursue science for accolades alone. “The goal should never be to try and win a Nobel Prize,” he said. “The goal should be to do something valuable that ends up winning a Nobel Prize.” He noted that while India has not produced a science Nobel winner in decades, “the country is now primed” for breakthrough research, citing strong work at institutions such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

Both laureates also weighed in on the promise and limits of artificial intelligence in research. MacMillan said AI is currently most effective in optimisation rather than discovery. “AI has not been able to invent any new chemistry,” he said. “It can suggest valuable questions or combinations, but the inventive leap still comes from chemists.”

Robinson, meanwhile, called AI “a powerful tool” for data-driven social science but said it will not originate new ideas. “I don't see it reshaping how we think about social problems,” he told TOI. However, he warned that broader deployment of AI in the economy may deepen inequality by displacing workers and depressing wages. “For sure, yes — absolutely, it has a downside,” he said.

The discussion formed part of the Nobel Prize Dialogue's theme, “The Tomorrow We Want,” exploring how science, governance and economics could shape the decades ahead.

(With inputs from TOI)
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Source: EconomicTimes
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