Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday called for a collective aim to establish India as one of the key partners in global semiconductor supply chain. In his address after inaugurating the Semicon India Conference 2022, the prime minister headlined the critical role of semiconductors in the present world.
The conference is being organised by union minister for electronics and IT, railways and communication Ashwini Vaishnaw, MoS electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar. The steering panel of the conference includes startups, academicians along with global industry leaders.
The prime minister also informed the people about the recently-announced $10 billion Semi-con India programme, which aims to provide financial support to the companies investing in semiconductors, manufacturing and design ecosystems.
“I see six reasons for India being an attractive investment destination for semi conductor technology…We want to work in this direction based on the principle of high technology, high quality, and high reliability,” the prime minister said.
“Firstly, India is building a digital infrastructure to connect over 1.3 billion Indians. The country has made strides in the field of financial inclusion, banking and digital payment revolution,” Modi said.
“Secondly, with initiatives like connecting six lakh villages with broadband investment in developing capabilities in 5G, clean energy technologies, India is paving the way to lead the next tech revolution. Thirdly, India is headed for robust economic growth with the world’s fastest growing startup ecosystem,” the prime minister said, adding that the country’s own consumption of semiconductors is set to cross $80 billion by 2026 and $110 billion by 2030.
India has undertaken wide-ranging reforms for improving the ease of doing business, the prime minister said. The abolition of more than 25,000 compliances, pushing towards auto-renewal of licenses, transparency and speed in regulatory framework via digitisations found mention in the prime minister’s address.
“We have an exceptional semiconductor design talent pool which makes up to 20% of the world’s semiconductor design engineers. Almost all of the top 25 semiconductor design companies have their design or R&D centres in our country”, he added while highlighting the fifth reason being the skilled talent pool.
PM Modi during his address highlighted that India had undertaken several measures to transform the Indian manufacturing sector. ““At a time when humanity was fighting a once in a century pandemic, India was not only improving the health of our people but also the health of our economy”, he said.