Companies have so far proposed investments worth about Rs 1 lakh crore under the second phase of India’s Semiconductor Mission, or Semicon 2.0, with the investments expected to come over the next two to three years, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday.
Addressing the media on the sidelines of the fifth edition of SEMICON India 2026 in New Delhi, Vaishnaw said the proposed investments span semiconductor equipment, materials, gases, chemicals, ATMP units, substrates and, in one case, wafers.
Asked how many companies had made the commitments, Vaishnaw said the government would not disclose their names at this stage and that the companies would announce the investments themselves after obtaining necessary approvals from their boards and shareholders.
“Through Semicon 1.0, we have maintained a particular protocol: we announce things only once they are finalised, rather than making tall announcements. We have always been very conservative in our announcements, and we certainly want to say only those things that we really, really will do. We will follow the same approach. The say-to-do ratio has to be high,” he said.
The government launched the India Semiconductor Mission in 2021 with an outlay of Rs 76,000 crore to build capabilities in semiconductor fabrication, packaging, compound semiconductors, display manufacturing and chip design. Twelve projects have subsequently been approved under the first phase, with cumulative investment of around Rs 1.64 lakh crore.
In July, the Union Cabinet approved Semicon 2.0 with an outlay of Rs 1,27,500 crore, expanding the focus beyond fabs and packaging to the broader semiconductor ecosystem. The programme has six pillars — chip design, semiconductor equipment and materials, fabs, advanced packaging, research and development, and talent development.
Vaishnaw said the first pillar of Semicon 2.0 would focus on expanding the chip-design ecosystem by supporting both startups and large companies. The government also plans to support semiconductor equipment makers setting up design and manufacturing operations in India.
“We have seen many machine makers and capital equipment makers here. Applied Materials today announced a $5 billion investment. Lam also announced a large investment. Many others are looking at setting up their bases in India,” he said.
The minister said the government would also focus on bringing more fabrication plants, including display, memory, silicon, compound and logic fabs, along with advanced packaging facilities.
He said the R&D component would be driven by applied research involving industry, the government and academia. The talent-development pillar, meanwhile, would expand training in chip and systems design and create a large technician pool for the factories being established in the country.
Vaishnaw said India had already trained 85,000 semiconductor engineers in four years against an original 10-year target and was now looking to expand the talent base further under Semicon 2.0.
Meanwhile, Tata Electronics is set to sign 16 MoUs at SEMICON India with companies and institutions across the semiconductor value chain. Its partners include Nexperia and BESI from Europe; JSR, Fujifilm, Sumitomo, Sojitz and Ajinomoto from Japan; Kelington from Malaysia; Ascendas and First Space from Singapore; and L&T Semiconductors, Inox Air Products, Semiconductor Laboratory and Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya from India.
