India to meet up to 75% of chip needs domestically by 2029: IT Minister

By 2029, India will be able to design and manufacture semiconductor chips required for nearly 70% to 75% of domestic applications, said Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw.

The Minister further said that the "Semicon 2.0" initiative will focus toward the production of 3-nanometre and 2-nanometre technology nodes in early 2030’s, said the Minister.

According to experts and government, these advanced 3nm and 2nm nodes are the critical "compute backbone" for India's national AI Mission.

Recently India’s debuted its first domestic 3nm chip design hubs in Noida and Bengaluru, established in May 2025 through a collaboration with the Japanese tech leader Renesas Electronics. For now, India will design these 3nm chips domestically but will have them manufactured at advanced global foundries until India’s own high-tech fabrication facilities are ready. The design work is intended to build the proprietary Intellectual Property (IP) required to eventually feed domestic 2nm fabrication lines planned for 2032-2035.

Industry specialists note that moving into 3nm and 2nm territory is a massive technological leap. At these nearly atomic sizes, the biggest hurdle is "electrical leakage," where circuits struggle to keep power in, requiring complex new designs to stay efficient.

Beyond the physics, the cost is a major factor; these chips require extremely rare, billion-dollar machines that only a few global companies can run. The ultimate challenge is perfection—even a single speck of dust can ruin an entire batch, making high-quality production incredibly difficult to master.

He was speaking during a recent interaction in New Delhi with semiconductor chip design companies approved under the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme of the Semicon India Programme, the Minister said that by 2035, India aims to be among the top semiconductor nations globally.

This timeline also matches recent media reports that four major semiconductor plants are expected to begin commercial operations in 2026, after pilot production starts at three facilities in 2025, as stated by Ashwini Vaishnaw during his visit to ASML’s headquarters in the Netherlands. ASML is a Dutch company that makes chip manufacturing machines used to produce advanced semiconductors.

Global Perception

The Minister, reflecting on his interactions during the World Economic Forum in Davos, noted a significant change in international sentiment. “From initial scepticism in 2022, global perception has shifted significantly, with industry leaders now keen to partner with India’s growing semiconductor ecosystem,” he said.

To capitalize on this interest, the Minister said that in the next phase of the semiconductor mission the government intends to scale up the programme, with a target of enabling at least 50 fabless semiconductor companies.

Recently with the conclusion of the India-European Union Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on January 27, 2026, the agreement, alongside the "Towards 2030" Strategic Agenda, established a dedicated framework for semiconductor cooperation. A key outcome was the reduction of import duties on high-end European machinery (like lithography tools) from nearly 40% to 0%, which is likely to lower the capital expenditure for Indian semiconductor fabs.

Design and Infrastructure

The Minister outlined a focused strategy to strengthen India’s semiconductor design capabilities across six key system categories: compute, RF and wireless, networking, power management, sensors, and memory.

These categories, he said, form the foundational building blocks for most modern electronic systems and would enable India to design and build solutions for a wide range of applications spanning defence, space, automotive, railways, drones and other strategic sectors.

On infrastructure development, the minister said presently SCL Mohali will support tape-outs in the 180-nanometre range, while advanced nodes up to 28 nanometres will be enabled through the upcoming fabrication facility at Dholera.

The Dholera plant, is a joint venture between the Tata Group and Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, and is currently in its equipment installation phase which is expected to roll out its first commercial chips by late 2026. The 28nm chips which will be manufactured are required for high-volume applications like automotive electronics and IoT devices.

On DLI Scheme

The DLI Scheme was launched in December 2021 and implemented in 2022 by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) as part of the broader India Semiconductor Mission. On the scheme's progress, the Minister said that the programme supports 24 startups. Many of these startups have already finished designing their chips (tape-outs), tested and proven their products, and have started getting customers or business from the market, he said.

Of the 24 startups supported under the scheme, the Minister said 14 have raised nearly ₹430 crore in venture capital funding, with 10 projects under construction and four expected to start production this year.

Under the scheme, companies have been provided with Advanced EDA tools, leading to approximately 2.25 crore tool-hours of usage, with 67,000 students and over 1,000 startup engineers actively engaged, the statement said. The Minister stated, “This has validated the government’s core approach of removing key barriers faced by semiconductor startups by providing access to advanced design tools, IP libraries, wafer and tape-out support—an architecture of support that is unique globally.”

• In academia, 122 chip designs have been completed, of which 56 were manufactured at 180 nm at SCL, Mohali.
• Startups have completed 16 designs, leading to six chips being made at advanced foundry nodes as small as 12 nm.
• Academic institutions have filed 75 patents, while startups have filed 10 patents.

To support this surge in activity, the government had announced a ₹4,500 crore modernization plan for SCL Mohali to upgrade its fabrication capacity and transform it into a world-class R&D and training hub.

On the human capital front, the government has already trained over 67,000 semiconductor professionals in four years, against a target of 85,000 over ten years.

Building a Self-Reliant Ecosystem

The Ministry of Electronics and IT said the DLI Scheme supports startups and companies in designing chips across areas such as SoCs, AI, IoT, telecom and power management to strengthen India’s self-reliance. The supported firms are developing indigenous processors and chips for surveillance, networking, embedded systems and low-power AI applications at the edge, as well as telecom and wireless chipsets, power management and mixed-signal ICs. Their work also extends to strategic sectors such as automotive, energy, space and defence, helping build a self-reliant semiconductor design ecosystem in the country.

Ashwini Vaishnaw concluded by noting that the programme was rolled out with a clear goal set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi: to build a complete semiconductor ecosystem through a long-term strategy and shift India from a services-based economy to a product-driven nation.