NEW DELHI: India has committed billions of dollars in semiconductors, electronics manufacturing and artificial intelligence (AI) in a bid to become a global technology powerhouse.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a groundbreaking ceremony for a chip assembly and testing facility that "this decade is India's 'Techade'".
But it faces a long road to match the output of rivals like the United States, China and South Korea.
Here are five key things to know about India's technology push:
Chips: 'national priority'
From 2017-2025, India imported about US$150bil (RM612.32bil) worth of microchips – components that power everything from smartphones to weaponry.
New Delhi has pledged more than US$20bil (RM81.64bil) in government support to reduce that dependence.
Five assembly, testing and packaging plants are now in commercial production, involving US industry titan Micron, Indian firms Kaynes, CDIL and Suchi Semicon, and CG Semi, an Indian, Japanese and Thai joint venture.
But such facilities do not require the same expertise as core manufacturing and research.
Another seven projects have been approved, including from Tata Electronics, which is building a chip factory in Gujarat in partnership with Taiwan's PSMC.
India's semiconductor market, estimated at about US$50bil (RM204bil) in 2026, is projected to reach US$110bil (RM449bil) by 2030, and more than US$200bil (RM816.42bil) by 2035, according to government figures.
New Delhi calls building up semiconductor production "an urgent national priority".
Electronics
India's electronics production rose from about US$31bil (RM126.55bil) in 2014-15 to US$133bil (RM542.92bil) in 2024-25, according to the government, which wants the country to become a tech manufacturing hub.
Global manufacturers including Apple and Samsung have expanded production in India, as companies seek to diversify supply chains beyond China.
New Delhi is also trying to encourage local supply chains through incentives for component makers.
Data centres
India generates vast quantities of digital data but has only about three per cent of global data-centre capacity, according to government figures.
India believes it can provide "an alternative" to existing options, said Arvind Gupta, head of the Digital India Foundation think tank.
The government says projects worth nearly US$70bil (RM285.75bil) are under construction, with a further US$90bil (RM367.39bil) announced.
Investors include Indian conglomerates Reliance and Adani, as well as US tech giants Amazon, Microsoft and Meta.
The southeastern port of Visakhapatnam is a key centre, where Google is building a US$15bil (RM61.23bil) AI hub.
Workforce strength
The world's most populous nation says it has nearly 20% of the global chip-design workforce.
Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw says about 70,000 design engineers have been trained in the past four years.
Authorities have expanded semiconductor-related courses and programmes across hundreds of engineering colleges.
Modi, speaking to global technology firms at a semiconductor conference in New Delhi in September, said that "such a huge talent pool is a goldmine".
But Nomura, a Japanese investment bank, calls India "ground zero" for AI-driven job disruption in Asia, given its huge workforce and vast IT-services sector.
India's AI push has fuelled job-loss concerns, but the government expects AI-linked jobs to nearly double to 1.25 million by 2027.
Uphill task
Experts question whether India can translate ambitious plans into a competitive technology ecosystem.
"India... has to navigate the complicated geopolitics of technology," Gupta said, adding it faced three key challenges.
Those are "access to global capital", as well as "attracting and retaining top global talent" and "sourcing the hardware resources that are the foundation to these technologies". – AFP
