The country lacks infrastructure required for making chips. The government, however, can use auto sector as a model to frame the right policies.





D oubts about India's wafer fabrication ambitions were epitomised in a recent New York Times article on India's computer hardware manufacturing ambitions ("India, Long the Home of Outsourcing, Now Wants to Make its Own Chips").

The New York Times' global edition, International Herald Tribune, carried a more pointed title: "Doubts Grow Over India's Computer Ambitions".

Despite a false note in the print version mis-stating India's electricity generation capacity, the article underlines the difficulties in such an undertaking in India because of the lack of infrastructure, and questions the efficacy of mandated local sourcing.

Do or die

Does this mean that we should abandon aspirations of wafer fabrication? Or should we concentrate on fixing these problems instead?

The New York Times article provides a compelling reason for changing our game from disjointed aspirations and scattershot efforts to focused, goal-oriented, convergent planning and execution: India's electronics import demand, now $70 billion, is projected to quadruple by the end of the decade, exceeding oil imports.

Click NEXT to read more...