PM Modi pitches India as next global destination for semiconductors

PM Modi visited the exhibition halls of the fourth edition of India Semicon, where he interacted with the senior executives from these companies

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday urged global semiconductor executives to view India as the next destination for setting up manufacturing units, paving the way for a boost to the industry in the country.

 

Modi met top executives of companies such as ASML, Tata Electronics, Applied Materials and AMD, among others, as well as those from the global and Indian semiconductor industry and policy advocacy bodies. He sought feedback on what had worked for them in the first phase of the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM).

 

“There were about 20-25 people, including chief executive officers (CEOs) and other executives and ministry officials, among others. Everyone was given 2-3 minutes to share their ideas or make a presentation on the needs and demands of their industry and how India could help,” a person who attended the meeting said.

 

The CEO roundtable, on the second day of India Semicon 2025, also saw the PM asking the industry for feedback on the contours and design of the second phase of ISM, according to another person who attended the meeting.

 

Sources said that senior officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology talked about India’s chip journey so far. These include the fact that the country now has 10 semiconductor manufacturing and packaging units with a total committed investment of $18 billion. 

 

“The idea was to pitch a semiconductor ecosystem, which is backed by a stable and predictable policy regime. And, capabilities in design, packaging, startups, and semiconductor skills segments,” one of the persons said.

 

Earlier in the day, PM Modi visited the exhibition halls of the fourth edition of India Semicon, where he interacted with senior executives from companies.

 

The India Semicon 2025, which PM Modi inaugurated on Tuesday, has seen ASML’s CEO Christophe Fouquet, Prabu Raja, president of the semiconductor products group at Applied Materials, Randhir Thakur and Srinivas Satya of Tata Electronics, among others, hold various sessions. They shared their perspective on the Indian as well as global semiconductor supply chain ecosystem.

 

On Tuesday, while inaugurating Semicon India 2025, Modi said that although India had started late on its semiconductor journey, no one could stop its march from paperwork to wafer work.

 

The ₹76,000-crore ISM, which was formally announced in December 2021, has nearly exhausted all of its funds.

 

It saw approvals for one chip fabrication unit, one compound chip fabrication unit and eight outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing (OSAT) as well as assembly, testing, marking, packaging (ATMP) units.

 

During the inaugural session on Tuesday, Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that India stood out as a stable economy amid the global turmoil that was troubling countries worldwide.