The Quint | One Year On, Should India Revisit its Drone Components Ban?

Over 70 percent of the materials crucial to India’s drone manufacturing assembly lines have been produced in China.

By Anushka Saxena & Satya S Sahu

Read the full article here.

The Diplomat | The US Can Accelerate India’s Rise as a Legacy Chip Hub

Friendshoring supply chains for legacy chips to countries like India is likely the most feasible long-term solution for the West in the face of China’s dominance.

By Satya Sahu and Amit Kumar

Read the full article here.

Firstpost | As AI arms race heats up, India’s role will be crucial

While India may not be competing directly in Graphics Processing Unit manufacturing, its software-centric approach to AI development could redefine the parameters of technological leadership in the artificial intelligence era.

Read the full article here.

Firstpost | The carbon quandary: AI, big data, and impending environmental crisis

AI’s potential in combating climate change is tempered by a sobering reality: Its reliance on power-hungry data centres. Can ‘green AI’ become a reality before it’s too late?

Read the full article here.

Firstpost | How India is moving fast to becoming semiconductor ‘aatmanirbhar’

The India Semiconductor Mission’s (ISM) ambitious goal to establish a robust domestic chip design and manufacturing ecosystem is gradually achieving fruition. The Union government recently approved three semiconductor units, including India’s first fabrication plant by Tata Electronics Private Limited, in partnership with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation in Dholera, Gujarat. Read the full article here.

Takshashila Blog | The Imperative of Open-sourcing Chip Manufacturing Processes

The India Semiconductor Mission’s (ISM) ambitious goal to establish a robust domestic chip design and manufacturing ecosystem is gradually achieving fruition. The Union government recently approved three semiconductor units, including India’s first fabrication plant by Tata Electronics Private Limited, in partnership with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation in Dholera, Gujarat.

India’s presence in the chip design stage of the global value chain (GVC) is sizeable and well-established, playing host to global semiconductor design houses such as AMD and Qualcomm. There’s a slight glitch in the matrix, though: despite a large pool of skilled design engineers and a growing domestic market, India has struggled to establish a robust homegrown chip design and product ecosystem.

New Delhi has launched initiatives like the semiconductor Design-Linked Incentive (DLI) and Chips 2 Startup (C2S) schemes, which aim to provide select startups and universities with affordable access to Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software tools essential for designing all modern chips.

However, a key hurdle for startups and academia is the lack of standardised and affordable access to collaborative research facilities, and critical chip design toolkits inextricably linked to the fabrication stage of the supply chain that India is focused on: Process Development Toolkits (PDKs). Read the full article here.

Firstpost | Embracing AI: A strategic shift towards software-centric innovation in India

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, driven by a coalition of tech giants and developers rallying behind an OpenAI-led initiative to build software that facilitates switching between different AI chips. As Nvidia’s dominance in AI hardware faces challenges due to supply shortages and high costs, this initiative aims to democratise AI development by reducing dependence on Nvidia’s proprietary software platform, Cuda. This article contends that India, with its robust software development industry, is uniquely positioned to contribute to this transformative shift, and this strategy plays well to India’s strengths and could assist India from a geopolitical perspective too. Read the full article here.

Transitions Research | Why AI Governance Must Contend With Semiconductor Geopolitics

The entire AI value chain (also known as the AI technology stack or life cycle), from data and algorithms to computing infrastructure required for training and deployment, is critically dependent on semiconductors. Different kinds of chips like CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs and specialised ASICs, form the substrate that enables the creation and operation of AI systems. As AI systems become more sophisticated and ubiquitous, efforts to create robust governance frameworks to ensure their safe, ethical and responsible development and deployment have emerged and accelerated. Multilateral efforts like the OECD’s AI Principles and the Global Partnership on AI, etc., are important initiatives. However, any serious effort to govern AI must also grapple with the complex geopolitical and geo-economic dynamics of semiconductors. Read the full article here.

ASPI - The Strategist | A practical agenda for India-Australia semiconductor collaboration

With the global semiconductor supply chain under strain, India and Australia have a timely opportunity to strengthen their partnership in the critical sector. Both recognise the strategic importance of developing domestic semiconductor capabilities. As Quad members, they are also a part of the Quad Semiconductor Supply Chain Initiative, which seeks to ‘map capacity, identify vulnerabilities, and bolster supply-chain security for semiconductors and their vital components.’ Read the full article here.

Mint | Geopolitical power is now seen to flow from the pins of microchips

The US is going after the Chinese semiconductor industry with a ferocity that has very few precedents. Driven by a national security doctrine aimed at denying China the ability to exploit American technology to threaten America’s interests, Washington has been tightening the screws on its own industry and that of its allies since the summer of 2022. In addition to export restrictions and employment controls, the US government has been pushing Taiwan, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea and Germany to squeeze the sale of manufacturing equipment, critical parts, raw materials and ongoing service contracts with mainland Chinese companies. Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister recently called the sanctions “reaching bewildering levels of unfathomable absurdity." Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | India gains semiconductor momentum but the policy mix can be even better

On February 29, the Indian government approved three semiconductor units worth Rs 1.26 lakh crore including a fabrication plant by Tata Electronics Private Limited (TEPL) in partnership with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC) in Dholera. The other two units include Assembly Testing Marking & Packaging (ATMP) plants to be set up by Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Private Limited (TSAT) in Morigaon and CG Powers in Sanand. The Cabinet’s clearance of the three projects demonstrates its commitment to integration into the semiconductor Global Value Chain (GVC). The hitherto hesitant private sector has also exhibited the resolve to venture into an unfamiliar manufacturing segment that hasn't historically been India’s forte. Together with the US-headquartered Micron’s ATMP unit in Gujarat, these announcements herald a new era in India's semiconductor strategy. Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | GoI’s Rs 10,000 crore plan for a ‘sovereign AI’ computing infrastructure needs a rethink

The union government has recently announced plans for an ambitious Artificial Intelligence (AI) computing mission with a budget of Rs 10,000 crore. This initiative seeks to create a ‘sovereign AI’ computing infrastructure that can provide computing resources as a service to Indian startups, particularly in the sectors of agriculture, healthcare, and education. AI is undeniably a technology of immense transformative potential with many applications. However, the government's strategy to build the necessary computational infrastructure is not the best use of public funds. The aim of harnessing the benefits of AI for Indians will be better served if the government concentrates its efforts and resources on areas that are not typically addressed by the private sector. Read the full article here.

The Hindu | The need to overhaul a semiconductor scheme

The mid-term appraisal of the semiconductor Design-Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme is due soon. Since its announcement, the DLI scheme has approved only seven start-ups, markedly short of its target of supporting 100 over five years. This impact assessment, therefore, presents an opportunity for policymakers to appraise and revamp the scheme. India’s $10 billion Semicon India Program has had mixed results, at best. There are three goals of India’s semiconductor strategy. The first is to reduce dependence on semiconductor imports, particularly from China, and especially in strategic and emerging sectors, ranging from defence applications to Artificial Intelligence development. The second is to build supply chain resilience by integrating into the semiconductor global value chain (GVC). The third is to double down on India’s comparative advantage: India already plays host to the design houses of every major global semiconductor industry player and Indian chip design engineers are an indispensable part of the semiconductor GVC. Read the full article here.

Takshashila Blog | A Potential Strategy to Navigate a Fractured RISC-V Ecosystem

In the rapidly evolving world of semiconductor geopolitics, a new fault line is emerging, one that could have far-reaching implications for countries like India. The United States, in its strategic tussle with China, could be contemplating imposing export controls on (Reduced Instruction Set Computer or RISC-V technology.

Developed at the University of California, Berkeley, RISC-V is an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA), a set of basic instructions and functions that allows companies to develop microprocessors based on this specification.  Read the full blog here.

Scroll.in | A new book examines how India can set up new and world-class semiconductor facilities

India only has a few fabrication facilities owned and operated by the government for critical infrastructure needs in space and defence. Prior attempts to attract private investments in these fields have failed due to cost disadvantages and uncertainty of the investment climate. These challenges remain. Combining these barriers with the fact that nearly every major chip-producing country when the chips are down is aggressively trying to localise leading-edge fabrication facilities, India is on a weak wicket. Read the full article here.

CASI | Chandrayaan and Chips: Space Lessons for India’s Semiconductor Program?

From a technology policy lens, the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission in 2023—which saw India become the fourth country to land a rover on the moon and the first to do so near the Lunar south pole—brings up a pertinent question: If largely government-run efforts could make India a bonafide space power, can some of those learnings help India become a semiconductor power? Geopolitical competition between the US and China, as well as a perceived overreliance on a seemingly vulnerable Taiwan for the vast majority of advanced chips, has made the semiconductor manufacturing sector the focus of intense industrial policy efforts over the last few years, after decades of it being the poster child of globalization. Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | Growing US-China chip rivalry presents India with its geopolitical moment

In the US-China geopolitical tussle, 2022 was a watershed moment. In August, Washington unveiled the CHIPS and Science Act and followed it up with chip export controls in October, setting the tone for an intense rivalry in emerging and critical technologies with semiconductors at the forefront. The CHIPS and Science Act had but one objective: reshoring chip manufacturing back in the US from East Asia, where 85 percent of the current global fabrication capacity is concentrated. The export controls aimed to restrict China's access to advanced semiconductors and keep Chinese chip manufacturing capabilities behind the US by at least a decade. The controls also imposed restrictions on foreign companies operating in China, which relied on technology and capital sourced from the US. Read the full article here.

Nikkei Asia | Chipmaking subsidies are not the answer to supply security worries

The U.K. national semiconductor strategy, released in May, has been criticized for showing a lack of ambition or courage. The plan foresees government spending of 1 billion pounds ($1.2 billion). This has made some observers question the stance of the U.K. toward the chip sector in view of tens of billions of dollars in subsidies that the U.S., European Union, Japan, India and other governments are allocating to the industry. The U.K., though, is choosing a categorically different path from its peers, based on utilizing its comparative advantages. Read the full article here.

The Hindu | The signals from this ‘Made in China’ smartphone story

Huawei, the Chinese smartphone giant, has created ripples within the strategic and business community with its newly unveiled Mate 60 Pro which houses the Kirin 9000 processor. The chipset reportedly used Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC)’s second-generation 7nm fabrication technique, thereby demonstrating China’s capability to manufacture a 7nm chip. Read the full article here.

The Hindu | Learning from the CHIPS Act of the U.S.

The United States’ Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS Act) completes one year as a law today (August 9). The Act authorises $52.7 billion over five years to boost American competitiveness, innovation and national security in semiconductors. While the jury is still out on the long-term effectiveness of the Act, what is important from an Indian perspective is to observe and learn from its implementation. As industrial policy has become a default policy of choice for nation-states, the Act provides a clear window into the capabilities and structures needed to execute such policies. Read the full article here.