Micromax, Phison form JV for storage chips

Indian mobile phone company Micromax Informatics has tied up with Taiwanese NAND storage chip maker Phison Electronics to develop high-end storage products for enterprise, automotive and artificial intelligence (AI) models.

- Gulveen Aulakh

NEW DELHI:

The joint venture (JV) called MiPhi, in which Micromax holds a 55% stake, has started manufacturing the storage chips or solid-state drives from Micromax's Greater Noida facility and will train users on integrating the chips with existing infrastructure.

"By combining our local market expertise with Phison's critical technological prowess, we are poised to deliver breakthrough solutions," said Rahul Sharma, co-founder of Micromax Informatics, in a release on Thursday.

"With this venture, we aim to bring down the cost of GPU (graphics processing unit) by one-tenth by bringing the lowest per token cost in the world. This will help us in disrupting the AI landscape not only in India but also in specific agreed-upon regions," said Sharma.

As part of its go-to-market strategy, MiPhi will leverage Micromax's established relationships with Indian clients and Phison's advanced NAND storage solutions (which can retain data even when power is switched off) for collaborations across industries. The companies, however, did not reveal the capacity or scale of manufacturing from the Greater Noida facility.