Chip mission beyond meeting domestic needs: EAM

NEW DELHI: India’s semiconductor mission is not just about meeting domestic requirements but also aimed at contributing to a global demand for trusted manufacturing, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday.

In an address at a conference, he told top executives of leading global semiconductor firms that their decisions and relationships have implications far beyond immediate business and can contribute to re-engineering the global economy.

Jaishankar noted that an India-Japan pact on cooperation on the semiconductor supply chain was finalised this month and a similar agreement was sealed with the US in March as he argued that trust and transparency have emerged as key issues for the future of the digital domain and questions like who processes and harvests “our data is becoming crucial in a world of artificial intelligence.”

India has been trying to attract leading semiconductor producers to set up manufacturing facilities in the country in the backdrop of evolving geopolitical landscape and increasing global focus on ensuring resilient supply chains.

Jaishankar noted that the depiction of a “chip war” may be somewhat overstated, but it has “more than a fundamental kernel of truth”.

“Our semiconductor mission is not just about meeting domestic requirements. It is also about contributing to a global demand for trusted manufacturing. Indeed, it is truly a powerful case for Make in India and Make for the World,” he said.

In his virtual address at the SemiconIndia Conference 2023 in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, Jaishankar also highlighted India’s growing cooperation in the critical technology domain with the US and mentioned the MoU on semiconductor supply chain and innovation partnership that was firmed up during US Commerce Secretary Gina M Raimondo’s visit to New Delhi in March.

“It sought to establish a collaborative mechanism that would represent a productive intersection of America’s CHIPS and Science Act and India’s semiconductor mission,” he said. Jaishankar said cooperation in semiconductors was a focus of talks during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US last month. “Three US companies - Micron Technology, Lam Research and Applied Materials - made specific commitments that have been the subject of your deliberations as well,” he said.

In the global context, critical and emerging technologies (CET) have become an intrinsic element of the knowledge economy that is steadily unfolding. “If the very nature of our economic and social activities undergo a transformation as a result, it is not surprising that CET should now emerge as one of the important metrics of power.

“Who invents, who manufactures, what are the market shares, where are the resources, who has the skills, where is the talent pool -- these are increasingly the crucial questions,” he said.

“Technology trade is not just trade, it is as much as about political science. The truth is that we are seeing the re-emergence of export controls as a response to strategic assertions of economic strength. How to do business needs to be tempered with where and with whom to do it,” he noted.

7 Indian start-ups approved for chip designing: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

As part of the efforts to boost semiconductor business in 10 years, seven chip design start-ups have been approved for funding and assistance in developing their products, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on the second day of ‘Semicon India 2023.’ “This initiative is steadily gaining confidence and support. It’s a relatively new opportunity for start-ups to delve into deep tech and semiconductor design,” he said, noting that the future is bright for India in the global semiconductor ecosystem.

Two more startups/ MSMEs involved in semiconductor design were announced as participants in the ‘SemiconIndia futureDESIGN DLI’ scheme. Aheesa Digital Innovations Pvt Ltd (Aheesa) located in Chennai, which focuses on telecom, networking and cyber security domains, is one such selected for this initiative. The other one is Bengaluru’s Calligo Technologies which serves global companies in HPC, Big Data and AI/ML segments.