‘We don’t have to repeat the 30 years’: India taps Asia’s chip hubs to fast-track semiconductor ambitions

India's semiconductor strategy prioritizes rapid catch-up by importing talent. Kaynes Semiconductor, for instance, recruited veterans from the Philippines and Malaysia to fast-track its packaging plant. This approach aims to compress decades of development into a shorter timeframe. India seeks to avoid the 30-year learning curve others faced, leveraging existing Asian expertise.

The immediate impact for Asia is a new demand for experienced semiconductor professionals. India's focus on backend operations and packaging creates opportunities for skilled workers from established hubs like the Philippines and Malaysia. This poses a brain drain risk for those nations, but also new revenue streams for companies supplying expertise. The challenge for India is to localize more of its supply chain, as highlighted by Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's 1.27 trillion rupee Semicon 2.0 program.

The real test for India is not just building plants, but developing a local ecosystem for materials and components. Inox Air Products, an Indian industrial gas supplier, currently produces only a dozen of the 50 gases a single fab requires. Watch whether India can significantly expand local production of these critical inputs beyond the roughly 10 more gases Inox plans to add. Without this, India's chip ambitions will remain heavily reliant on imports.