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To reduce its dependence on China and Taiwan, India will produce its own semiconductors. It is also a way to offset the shortages experienced during the Covid-19 crisis.
With Sébastien Farcis, RFI correspondent in India,
The Government has launched an aid plan of almost 10,000 million euros and the first contracts for the construction of factories have been signed.
The Indian mining company Vedanta has entered into an alliance with the Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn.
Some 20 billion euros will be spent on producing some of India’s first semiconductors in the northwestern state of Gujarat. Two other foreign companies plan to open similar plants in the south of the country.
In each case, the government is providing financial and structural support to ensure the availability of land, continuous electricity, and quality water, which are essential for this high-tech industry.
However, for the industry to flourish, it will also be necessary to invest in innovation, says Mayank Shrivastava, associate professor at the Indian Institute of Sciences and co-founder of Agnit Semiconductors. Because if today the question is who produces, tomorrow it will be who has access to the latest technology, such as semiconductors without silicon.
If India wants to stay in the race, it must develop its own patents, otherwise foreigners who invent this technology will not give it access to it and it will not be able to produce the latest generation of semiconductors.
Another challenge for this country of 1.38 billion people is the workforce. Each factory requires close to a thousand highly-skilled engineers, so India will have to strengthen its technology chains to avoid shortages in this area.
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