India’s Chip Future—Beyond Fabs

India has semiconductor talent at scale, but turning design strength into globally competitive IP-led chip companies remains the bigger challenge

- By Urvi Shrivastav

INDIA’S SEMICONDUCTOR narrative today is dominated by manufacturing ambition.

Large fabs, multi-billion-dollar investments and job creation dominate official messaging under the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM). But semiconductor manufacturing is a long-cycle play, often taking years before becoming operational and commercially viable. Even as the government continues to push manufacturing through subsidy-led incentives and ecosystem building, the immediate opportunity may lie in semiconductor design, where India already commands one of the world’s largest pools of chip design talent but still lacks globally competitive fabless firms with meaningful intellectual property (IP) ownership. The Union Budget 2026–27 allocated Rs 1,000 crore toward the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0, while the government has already approved 10 ISM projects worth Rs 1.60 lakh crore across six states. India’s semiconductor market is also projected to reach $100–110 billion by 2030, underlining the scale of the opportunity ahead.

India’s Real Chip Advantage

What is often underplayed is that India is already one of the world’s largest semiconductor design talent hubs. Global chipmakers continue expanding engineering operations in the country, and Indian engineers contribute to some of the most advanced semiconductor products globally. “India’s design talent has scaled strongly through global design services, but transitioning to IP ownership now needs deeper risk capital, stronger product management and better market access,” said Navin Bishnoi, VP & India Country Manager at Marvell Technology.