I met with Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar, former Union Minister of State of Electronics and Information Technology and Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship at his residence in Delhi for an interview on the future of the Indian Semiconductor Mission. He has been instrumental right from the inception of the mission till today.
Even the US and India have signed an agreement to establish a new national security semiconductor fab in India to manufacture chips for military hardware and critical telecommunications, including a strategic partnership between the US Space Force (military) and India’s Bharat Semi and 3rdiTech Inc, to be supported by the semiconductor industry subsidy program, I look back at all the interviews given by Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar till date and asked him several key questions as a follow up of his responses in the past, both as a Minister and also as a successful entrepreneur.
Considering foreign investors like Israel Tower Semiconductors and L&T (to name a few) putting in Billions into these semiconductor ventures of India, how do you think it will impact India’s independence over chip design and intellectual property?
RC: The outcomes expected from India’s semiconductor policy are growing India’s footprint and presence in Global Semicon and Electronics supply chains – as a trusted and resilient hub. In addition, rapid changes in Electronics and Digital products and explosive growth of AI is also upending traditional chip designs and creating a huge new wave of innovation in devices and chip design startups – which is the other pole of India’s Semicon ambition and vision.
We are spending time and money training the workforce not just on the factory floor, but also on designers, and engineers. We are also trying to foster more Academia-Industry collaborations- what do you think are the steps we can take to retain this talent pool?
RC: In the coming years success and investments will be determined by Talent. As technology and innovation surges and disrupts, there is also a surge in demand for world-class talent in all emerging areas of Tech – from AI to Compute to Semicon to Automotive to Industrial.
Digital India Future Labs was launched in Feb 2024 with a focus on turning India into an R&D powerhouse. It’s already been a few months now, therefore, has the progress been in sync with what you had envisioned? How do you envision its growth in the future?
RC: As I said earlier – innovation is driving the creation of new architectures, platforms, products and devices – Digitization and innovation covers every segment – Automotive to Industrial to Telecom to Compute to Strategic – each of these segments is seeing new architectures and electronic product innovation disrupt every old legacy normal. Future Labs was aimed at an industry-academic framework that would lead to next-gen systems and products in every segment.
The ISM has an expansion plan to attract raw material suppliers and gas companies. What kind of support/scheme do you think these ancillary firms would require from the GOI to make it convenient for the setup of fabrication plants? Do you think it will be like the one extended to manufacturers? The supply chain of critical materials to the units is required to be stable for them to produce efficiently and meet the requirements, what measures are taken to address this management?
RC: No manufacturing sector can be successful if the supply chains that support it aren’t also developed as well. Government of India’s policies are specifically aimed at catalysing the “ecosystem” – there is incentive for supply chain players to invest in India to serve the Indian Semicon ecosystem as well as export from India to other global fabs. Over the next 2-3 years India’s Semicon ecosystem will consist of Fabs, Packaging, Design, R&D and supply chain manufacturers like Gas and other equipment including Fab manufacturing equipment.
(Mmhonlumo Kikon is a Fellow at the India Technology Policy Pacific Forum)
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