Batting for India’s huge potential in the global semiconductor market, Union Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said that the country has set in motion an ambitious plan to become a key supplier globally, with the government itself putting in $10 billion, the media has reported. Vaishnaw was speaking at a session on “Learning from semiconductor supply shocks” at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2023 in Davos. 

“Our university system that produces a large number of talent is also helping a lot as we have tied up with many universities to prepare the right talent,” Vaishnaw was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

According to Vaishnaw, India has a huge potential in terms of infrastructure, talent pool and technology. The Union minister mentioned that educational institutions have partnered with the government and changed the course curriculum for generating semiconductor talent in India.

“Three years from now India will be a large telecom equipment exporter. All the pieces are well set and the development is very good. A couple of countries have started exporting to countries like the US. So there is a very large market where the semiconductor is required as the basic raw material,” the Union minister added.

“India’s semiconductor policy supports mature nodes as well as advanced nodes. New plants and new fabs that India will set up, will be served with green energy,” Vaishnaw noted. 

To recall, earlier in December, Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said that Tata Group will start manufacturing semiconductors in India within a few years. As per the auto-to-steel conglomerate, manufacturing of chipsets in the country will make India a key part of the global chip supply chains.

The Tata Sons chairman was also quoted as saying that the company “look into the possibility of eventually launching an upstream chip fabrication platform.” The upstream process of wafer fabrication is more challenging both technologically and financially than the downstream steps of assembly and testing.

Tata Sons’ semiconductor manufacturing in India is likely to be similar to Vedanta’s deal with Taiwan’s Foxconn, also the world’s biggest electronics manufacturing services giant, to form a joint venture (JV) for manufacturing semiconductors in the country.

Earlier in June last year, reports said that Vedanta is mulling to invest around $15 billion in a phased manner over the next 5-10 years to build displays and semiconductor chips in the country. The JV will look at setting up a semiconductor manufacturing plant in the next two years. The joint venture between the two companies is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of creating an ecosystem for electronics manufacturing in the country.