India will require about three lakh semiconductor professionals by 2030, with a greater pool of skilled workers needed in fabrication, packaging, testing and semiconductor equipment in addition to chip design, C. Muthamizhchelvan, Vice-Chancellor of SRM Institute of Science and Technology, said on Tuesday.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the Semiconductor Summit 2026, organised by SRM Institute of Science and Technology in association with The Hindu, he said India had an opportunity to expand its semiconductor capabilities but needed to address gaps in manufacturing, talent and the conversion of research into commercial products.
“The world will need about one million semiconductor professionals by 2030. India already gives about one in five of the world’s chip designers,” he said, adding that the country’s requirements would extend beyond design to fabrication, packaging, testing and equipment.
He said India’s semiconductor market was already worth more than $50 billion, while most of the chips it used were imported.
“Factories alone will not close that gap. We need ideas, we need designs, and we need people,” he said.
From publications to products
Mr. Muthamizhchelvan said universities needed to change how they evaluated research and focus on outcomes such as patents, prototypes and products with commercial potential rather than academic publications alone.
“We have been judging our research and development in terms of the publications that are coming out from the research. And we used to forget that. We called this fund and forget,” he said.
He said SRM was aligning its research with national missions, including those covering artificial intelligence, semiconductors and quantum technologies. The university was encouraging students to work on problems identified by industry and offering academic credits for solutions developed through such projects.
Semiconductor development required expertise across multiple disciplines, including physics, chemistry, materials science, chemical engineering, mechanical design and computing, rather than electronics alone, he said.
Mr. Muthamizhchelvan cited two projects involving SRM students and semiconductor companies as examples of efforts to bring university research closer to industrial applications.
He also said India needed to build its own technological capabilities rather than remain primarily a consumer of imported products.
“The real chip is the human mind. So if our mind is tuned towards making chips, then obviously things will become easier,” he said.
Call for industry collaboration
The V-C invited companies to work with SRM on technical problems, establish joint laboratories, co-guide doctoral and postgraduate research, file patents together and take products to market.
“Bring us your hardest problem. We’ll be happy to work on those problems,” he said.
He said closer engagement between universities and companies could help ensure that research was directed towards practical needs and resulted in technologies with commercial and societal applications.
Mr. Muthamizhchelvan also pointed to international examples, including Taiwan, South Korea and Germany, where universities, research institutions, industry and governments had worked together to strengthen semiconductor capabilities.
He said the semiconductor ecosystem would require sustained collaboration rather than isolated investments or initiatives.
“Technology that India wants, India controls, India can sell to the world is very, very important,” he said.
Published – October 27, 2026 05:38 pm IST
