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Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has celebrated the nation’s independence day by pointing out that the nation is finally becoming a global chipmaking contender – 60 years after blowing the chance to be a global leader.
Modi’s Independence Day speech, delivered last Friday, included a section in which he celebrated the fact that six semiconductor manufacturing facilities are currently under construction in India, and the government last week approved four more.
“By the end of this very year, ‘Made in India’ chip, manufactured in Bharat by the people of Bharat, will be available in the market,” Modi said [‘Bharat’ is the name for India in many local languages – Ed].
The PM also lamented that India could have enjoyed that position decades ago.
“In our country, files related to semiconductors started moving 50–60 years ago,” he said. “The idea of a semiconductor factory began then. My young friends will be shocked to know that today, semiconductors have become a global force—but 50–60 years ago, the idea was stalled, delayed and shelved. The very conception of semiconductors was aborted. We lost 50–60 years.”
“Meanwhile, many countries mastered semiconductors and established their strength in the world,” Modi said, a likely reference to the success of Taiwan’s and China’s semiconductor industries.
Minister for Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw weighed in on his X account, where he claimed that Robert Noyce – the legendary semiconductor pioneer who co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel – visited India in 1964 and explored the possibility of opening a chipmaking plant, but India’s government rebuffed his approach.
Vaishnaw may not have the date correct, as other accounts of Noyce’s attempts to build a factory in India say he visited in 1969.
However in 1964 Fairchild did build a factory in Hong Kong.
Vaishnaw also claimed “Intel tried to set up a semiconductor unit in Bharat in 2005-06” but the government of the day was not receptive to the idea, a decision the minister painted as woefully shortsighted.
PM calls for more indigenous technology
Modi’s speech also included a call for India to develop its own operating systems, cyber security tools, deep tech, and artificial intelligence.
“Everything should be our own, on which the strength of our own people is concentrated, we should introduce the power of their capabilities to the world,” he said.
The PM also wants India to become self-sufficient in other technologies.
“If we don’t make EV batteries, we will be dependent. Be it solar panels or all the things required for electronic vehicles, we should have our own,” he said, adding an aspiration to achieve self-reliant in critical minerals.
One last thing: While semiconductor plants on India soil may start production this year, India is yet to announce progress on home-grown chip architectures despite previously showing off modest RISC-V designs that fall short of the parts needed to power a planned home-grown supercomputer. ®
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