Ajai Chowdhry urges Indian government to allocate ₹44,000 crore for chip production to achieve strategic autonomy amid US regulations

Ajai Chowdhry, Founder of HCL and Chairman EPIC Foundation has asked the Centre to consider a ₹ 44,000 crore allocation for the domestic production of chips and systems and to establish “strategic autonomy,” following the new US regulations on chip exports.

EPIC Foundation submitted a proposal to the government in this regard and asked the same be considered favourably during this year’s Union Budget.

Licensing & exports

The US government recently introduced a tiered framework for licensing and exports that increases control over the export of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chips and technology. Reacting to this news, EPIC Foundation asked that the Centre allocate ₹15,000 crore going toward system products, ₹11,000 crore for semiconductor products and the rest of the ₹44,000 crore for additional incentives and acquisitions.

“The most critical ones that are needed to be done in the Budget are the semiconductor products so that we become self-sufficient over a short period of time because that’s the demand of the new unipolar world. India has already made significant strides with the development of RISCV technology at IIT Madras, eliminating the need to pay license fees. Building on this, we should focus on designing our own chips using RISCV to safeguard against future sanctions,” said Chowdhry.

EPIC Foundation asked that the proposal be taken up on high priority for the Budget to reduce the dependence on exports by the fabs which will start running from 2025 to the next two years.

“We suggested the government to prioritise high-quality chips for the nation and provided a list of 30 chips and 30 priority products that should be developed and manufactured in India. The country’s fab-less and product industries will both benefit from this. The government signed the WTO ITA1 agreement which came into effect in 2005 and destroyed the electronics industry as all imports got allowed with zero duty,” said Chowdhry.