INDIA’s cabinet has approved a new semiconductor plant by HCL Group and Taiwan’s Foxconn, information minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday. The joint venture project is worth approximately £326.3 million.
The plant will be set up near the upcoming Jewar airport in Uttar Pradesh and is designed to have a capacity of 20,000 wafers per month. It will be able to produce 36 million display driver chips, Vaishnaw said at a cabinet briefing in New Delhi.
He said the plant is the sixth to be approved under the India Semiconductor Mission and that commercial production is expected to begin in 2027.
Prime minister Narendra Modi has made chip manufacturing a key part of India’s strategy to increase its role in global electronics production. India currently does not have an operational chipmaking facility.
Earlier in the month, Reuters reported that the Adani Group paused its discussions with Israel’s Tower Semiconductor for a proposed chip project worth around £75.2 billion, following an internal review over concerns related to commercial demand.
The Maharashtra state government had earlier announced approval for the Adani-Tower project in September. That project was expected to produce 80,000 wafers per month and create 5,000 jobs.
In 2023, Foxconn’s planned joint venture with Vedanta, valued at about £14.7 billion, was cancelled. The government had raised concerns over rising project costs and delays in approving incentives.
Other semiconductor projects are still progressing. These include a chip manufacturing and testing plant by the Tata Group worth about £8.3 billion, and a chip packaging facility by US-based Micron valued at approximately £2 billion.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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