Good catch by andeck!

This RFP is going to be very interesting to watch and see what develops.

I recall Paul discussing with Rainer at the time of the THM that perhaps the ultimate long view and end game was to move PoET offshore competely from North America and set it up within the comfort zone of some of the players in southeast Asia and India. So far, the repositioning has come to pass, as we have only an unstaffed shell office in Toronto and one in San Jose left in NA

The theory then was that AM was pivoting on his world view of a more influencial India within the world economy and paying on some political markers within the national government and also with the  Bangalore regioal government (m2i initiatives). I think he was overly optimistic on his time lines, but the objective was unchanged.

The wording of this RFP is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse so that a government agency can enter into a partnership with an entity ( person, corporation syndicate) and meet all the criteria of a government's "best practices"if questions are asked later.

The game, if it is afoot, has a huge payday.

Consider, if PoET is evertthing all of us believe it to be and have gambled a substanial investment in and is really only a a 4 position switch and a few $100 million away from reality, what that would be worth to a nation state to control? The militaries of the world compete to operate on the best, fastest and most reliable electronics from the world of semiconductors and if integrated photonics are the new wave of "best of the best". What then? If India's military/space agency is able to harness the utra short range of PoET and get it to a reliable internal chip? India is a nuclear state and is emerging as another world leading economy that will compete head to head with China.

We live in an era of corporate nation states that are positioning for the largest piece of the global economic pie.

Yes, this is dot connecting on a colossal scale, but the request, by a nation state,  for an RFP that, on the surface, only PoET can meet, started it.

My musings for a quiet Saturday afternoon.