Nearly two weeks after Government of India announced an ambitious $10 billion (₹76,000 crore) production linked incentive scheme to foster a semiconductor ecosystem, Intel Foundry Services President Randhir Thakur on Tuesday tweeted a message saying ‘glad to see a plan laid out for all aspects of the suppy chain: Talent, design, manufacturing, test, packaging & logistics.’

Responding to Thakur’s tweet, Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said ‘Intel – Welcome to India.’ This has given rise to speculation that the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturing company was seriously examining a plant in India especially as Intel has had operations in the country since 1988. India is its second largest non-manufacturing geography outside of the USA.

While Intel was yet to respond to BusinessLine ’s request for comment on whether it was planning a chip manufacturing facility in the country, sources in the industry indicated that given the recent policy announcements “there seems to be some progress in that direction.”

‘Progress likely’

Former Chairman of Indian Semiconductor Association who also had helmed the national task force on Electronics Product Design and Manufacturing (EDSM) and is currently Chairman – Karnataka Digital Economy Mission, BV Naidu said “the government has taken the right steps by announcing a forward-looking policy. I am sure several players including Intel are examining India both for commercial and strategic reasons. I am confident that there will be progress made on semiconductor manufacturing in the country.”

While India has traditionally had a large chip design engineering pool of talent, semiconductor manufacturing has largely eluded the country. This is not the first time that Intel has considered putting up a ‘fab’ in India. In 2007, it came close to making a decision but a lack of supportive ecosystem and incentives meant that China ended up being beneficiary of Intel’s $2.5 billion investment.

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