Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States has been more than historic. With the Memorandum of understanding (MoU) signing between General Electric (GE) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for jet engine production, both countries have also partnered on various other avenues.

India and the United States will have a deeper collaboration in developing technology, collaboration on cybersecurity and the space sector. However, the biggest collaboration between both countries is in the semiconductor sector.

US based Micron Technology Inc on Thursday announced setting up a $2.75-billion semiconductor testing and assembly facility in India. This is the first approval under the government’s ambitious $10-billion Semicon incentive plan. The Union Cabinet had recently given its approval for the same.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for IT and Electronics said, “PM Modi’s US visit was historic. Policy decisions taken over the past years is to make India a player in the global semiconductor supply chain. Since December 2021 substantial progress has been made in the semiconductor ecosystem. Many startups have come up in the semiconductor design space.”

Speaking exclusively to CNBC-TV18, he said, “Details on investment of the Central & State government will be decided later. This is a $3 Billion project; it'll create at least 20,000 jobs. We've been building a semiconductor ecosystem in the last 18 months. The PM wants India to have a presence in the global semiconductor value chain. India is slowly and surely becoming a growing force in the semiconductor ecosystem. We're in design, talent, packaging, research and we'll soon be in fabs. The Micron investment, Lam Research and Applied partnering with India is a significant milestone.”

The Minister is confident that India-US partnership will shape the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI). He added, “PM has always indicated our commitment to grow India AI, he said AI for India much before ChatGPT. PM sees AI as a big force multiplier & connecting enabler for digital economy, governance. PM sees many use cases of AI in healthcare, education etc.”

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Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the government is clearly focused on AI and will work on multiple ways in partnering with the US. The government is building AI India ecosystem & currently the technology is at early stages in India.

Micron Technology has proposed an investment of $2.75 billion (Rs 22,516 crore) in the next five years. Subsequent products include DORS, DOR 6, NAND 4 Die Stanu NAND 8 Die Stack and 550.

The proposed technology includes a wire blanding process for DDR4 & DORS. Direct Chip Attach (DCA) and Post fab Wafer Finish (PW)-DDRG. The incentive committed by the Indian government includes 50 percent of the actual CAPEX subject to a ceiling of Rs 11,258 crores on pari-passu basis.

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(Edited by : Sangam Singh)

First Published:Jun 23, 2023 3:23 PM IST