Source: Nikkei
India's semiconductor design ecosystem is advancing on paper—startups are moving toward production and government subsidies are flowing—but the actual bottleneck isn't design talent or capital, it's the brutal economics of manufacturing at scale. Foundry capacity remains concentrated in Taiwan and South Korea, wafer costs are punishing for small volumes, and India lacks the downstream supply chain (testing, packaging, logistics) that makes chip production viable. Even well-funded startups face a years-long slog before real commercialization. Industrial policy can nurture designers but cannot overcome the capital intensity and geographic lock-in of semiconductor fabs.