A $10 billion semiconductor PLI will let India accomplish in ten years what it took China 25–30 years to do: Chandrasekhar Rajeev

28 Jul 2023 , 10:58 AM

With $10 billion in incentives and assistance granted to promote domestic chip manufacturing, India is on pace to become a significant player in the global semiconductor supply chain in the following ten years, according to Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

Last year, companies like Vedanta and Taiwan’s Foxconn were drawn to the production-linked incentive (PLI) program because they pledged multi-billion dollar investments in the establishment of facilities to produce chips, which are used in everything from cars to mobile phones.

No one in the global semiconductor ecosystem, according to Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar, ‘does not see India as a very credible, viable and fast charging destination for semiconductor investments and innovation.’

In contrast to China’s three decades of advancement, he added that India is on track for the next 10 years in the semiconductor industry with $10 billion (about Rs 81,993 crore).

Additionally, he declared that the government is ‘charging forward’ in the semiconductor industry’s design sector with 30 startups, five of which have received government funding directly.

In an attack on the opposition, he said that India has ‘repeatedly’ fallen behind in the production of semiconductors and electronics.

‘We drove away Fairchild, the forerunner of Intel, when they attempted to establish a packaging facility in India in 1957. And that packaging business later developed into one of Asia’s major packaging hubs, he added.

We were only two years behind the newest chip node in 1987. We are currently 12 generations behind,’ he continued.

According to him, the government wants to cap the electronics market at $300 billion by 2025–2026, with $110 billion of that amount allocated to semiconductors by 2029.

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