New Delhi: With India focused on setting up its own semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem, Rajan Anandan, managing director of Sequoia Capital, has said the country has the capability to become a major player in the chip design space.

Speaking at the Mint Zetwerk Smart Manufacturing Summit 2023 on the growing number of Indian companies in newer manufacturing spaces like semiconductors, he noted that Sequoia recently invested in a deeptech startup focused on designing cost-effective and power-efficient system-on-chips (SoCS), Mindgrove.

He said while semiconductor manufacturing can be a highly capital-intensive business and mostly it is the big companies who get into the business, India has the capability to become a major player in the chip design space.

“Clearly the game on fabs is a large company game. We are talking about billions of dollars investment to build these fabs. But we think that on design India has a real shot. In fact, we announced the first company last week, in a couple of weeks we will announce another company. So, we think that even in semiconductors the startups are going to play a role more on the design side of things and then you will hopefully see fabs show up in a while from now."

The focus on the domestic semiconductor industry in India grew after the acute shortage of the product globally post the first wave of Covid-19, which impacted industries ranging from electronics to automobiles.

Anandan also said India is best-suited and well placed to play a bigger role in the global technology space with a boost to research and development and manufacturing sectors.

He noted that India has the largest number of software developers after the US and it is growing at a rapid pace which gives India an “extraordinary opportunity" as there are concerns globally over purchasing Chinese technology and people are looking for alternatives.

“This next 20-30 years is really India’s game to lose, because we have the talent, we have the ecosystem. We have a first generation of companies that are very good," he said.

●Link：mint_Rituraj Baruah