Union Minister of State for Electronics: World-class chip ecosystem to come up in India in 3 to 5 years

CHENNAI: Union Minister of State for Electronics, Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar brushed aside the concerns raised over India’s capabilities in crucial technologies such as semiconductor fabrication and developing indigenous large language models (LLM), saying the country will have a fully competitive world-class semiconductor ecosystem in a period of three to five years. 

Addressing newspersons here on Friday, Chandrasekhar said, “Currently we are starting with chip manufacturing packaging, and are building an ecosystem. Very soon, we will have a commercial fab and a semiconductor research centre.” 

He further said India’s repeated failures in establishing a semiconductor industry has made people sceptical. The Union government is planning to modernise our semiconductor laboratory in Mohali, and will transform it to a cutting-edge research centre.

Replying to questions on AI capabilities, the minister said India is looking at a large and diverse data set programme where the government’s data will be available for Indian researchers and startups. “These dataset will help companies develop LLMs like ChatGPT,” he said. 

The minister inaugurated automated Electromagnetic Interference and Compatibility (EMI/EMC) laboratories at society for applied microwave electronics engineering and research (Sameer).  As per a national survey, the total Indian market for EMI and EMC tests is expected to touch approximately `1,020 crore by 2030 from Rs 640 crore at present.

Chandrasekhar also inaugurated Siddharth, a linear accelerator (LINAC), which aims radiation at cancer tumours with accuracy at the Cancer Institute, Adyar. This 6 MV medical device developed by Sameer will help the cancer patients with radiotherapy, and experts at the institute say only a handful of players in the world can develop these kinds of equipment.

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