Rising Bharat Summit 2024: India-made Semicon to hit the market by Dec 2024, says IT Min Ashwini Vaishnaw

“Mark your calendars – December 2024 – that’s when the market will see the first made-in-India semiconductor.”

Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was speaking at News18’s Rising Bharat Summit 2024, where he spoke of Digital India, India’s semicon dreams and when will India finally arrive at the global stage of designing and making its own semiconductors.

Intent and conviction in India’s manufacturing
As a nation, India has had several domestic semiconductor manufacturing units before, but they needed to grow more so that India could have a semicon industry of its own.

“India has been trying to establish a semicon industry since 1962 but the reason why we failed was because those attempts lacked intent and did not have the right conviction,” said Minister Vaishnaw. “PM Modi brought that conviction and intent,” he added.

Electronics manufacturing is a core element of the foundations of Viksit Bharat, and at its core, is India Semicon. “From your TVs to the refrigerators, from your power electronics to the telecom machinery, from electronics in defence tech to the electronics in your car, semiconductors are at the core of it all.”

As far as the current government and its relation to semiconductors are concerned, it is PM Modi’s dream project. “The intent and conviction that the Prime Minister has for this mission is unparalleled. No other Prime Minister has ever had this vision”

India Semicon
Explaining just how essential India Semicon is to PM Modi’s vision of Viksit Bharat, minister Vaishnaw gave a few examples of how he conducts his meetings when it comes to semiconductors.

“Whenever we asked for a 30-45 minute meeting with the PM to discuss semiconductors, he would often be in those meetings for over 3 hours. He would discuss everything in great detail, often going through the agenda, line by line,” he said.

“PM Modi would also take every concerned department on board, would personally meet them and engage with them. He did not give us the option to fail – ‘We have to succeed in making India a semiconductor-manufacturing hub’ he would say often,” said the minister.