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The future of India’s chip industry

India’s government-backed report on semiconductor strategy outlines a measured, decade-long push to build domestic capabilities, with emphasis on packaging, mature nodes, and sovereign design. It notes that India currently has no fabrication plants and that the first fab is expected in Dholera by 2028, with about ten more in various stages of development. The India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) has a substantial corpus of ₹76,000 crore and prioritizes capital-efficient projects, including bulk subscriptions to design tools for students and researchers, while steering public funds toward projects with bankable returns. The report argues for selective investments in proven domains, rather than attempting to replicate the full global manufacturing spectrum, and identifies packaging as a core production pillar and a path for rapid import substitution in high-volume domestic segments. The plan also highlights the need to build sovereign capabilities in silicon design and materials science, leveraging agentic AI to accelerate semiconductor engineering. It signals collaborations with the United States, Japan, the European Union, and South Korea to access tools, equipment, and lifecycle support, underscoring geopolitical risk if critical components continue to be sourced abroad. While the timeline remains long and the talent pipeline is still developing, officials describe the framework as structured and actionable, designed to strengthen economic resilience and position India as a future participant in advanced technology ecosystems.