From services to products: Call for India’s next big leap @ Semicon India 2025

Ajai Chowdhry, distinguished IT luminary and Founder of EPIC Foundation, underlined the urgency for India to move beyond services and claim a leadership role in building world-class products, at Semicon India 2025. 

Speaking at the panel discussion “Making India a Product Nation”, Chowdhry emphasized the need for India to leverage its world-leading design talent and move decisively from being a services-driven economy to a product nation, building a robust ecosystem from design to systems, chips, fabs, and packaging. 

Adding to the momentum, Sahasra Electronics showcased a landmark achievement during Semicon India 2025, unveiling India’s first “Make in India” LED Driver IC and Micro SD memory card. Both products, manufactured through ATMP (Assembly, Testing, Marking and Packaging) in India, have now entered mass production. 

The company has reached a major milestone, shipping over 1 million chips and becoming the first Indian company to achieve this feat, marking a significant breakthrough in the country's semiconductor industry. This particular project was approved by the M-SIPS scheme launched by MeitY in 2012 to promote large-scale manufacturing in India's Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector by providing capital expenditure incentives. 

These projects trace their origins to EPIC Foundation’s vision, with the LED Driver chip being the first identified project under EPIC’s roadmap, and today stand as a tangible proof of India’s transition from concept to commercial delivery.

Founded three years ago by two of HCL’s co-founders, EPIC Foundation was created to transform India into an electronics and semiconductor nation. Two years later, under the guidance of Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, a national task force was formed, chaired by Principal Scientific Advisor, Prof. Sood, with a report that laid out a bold roadmap: create 30 systems products and 30 chips to energise India’s electronics ecosystem. 

This vision, aligned with fabs and OSATs, is now translating into reality with Sahasra’s LED driver chip milestone. 

Chowdhry has been a consistent visionary voice—engaging top political leaders, the government, industry, media, and academia—championing a robust IP ecosystem as central to India’s ambition of becoming a product nation, while underscoring that true inclusivity, safety, and growth will come only when India builds its own world-class products.

He said: “India has been a powerhouse in software services and design services, but it is time we move to become a product nation. Nearly 20% of the world’s design capability sits in India, yet most of it services global needs rather than building Indian products. 

"To create higher value addition, we need systems-to-chips thinking: make systems here, make chips here, package them here, and sell them into a growing domestic and global market. This complete ecosystem must be the focus of ISM 2.0.”

He highlighted successes under India’s DLI scheme, citing startups like Mindrove Technologies, Incore Semiconductors, Sankhya Labs, Morphing Machines, and Netra Semi, all of which are building world-class chips and products. 

Chowdhry stressed that government procurement must play a critical role in supporting domestic innovation: “The US succeeded with the DARPA model, where the government gave challenges to startups, funded them, and ensured business opportunities. India must replicate this model to complete the virtuous cycle and create hundreds of Indian chip and product companies.”

Chowdhry underlined the strategic stakes: “If a Chinese chip sits inside an Indian product, all the data goes back to China. It is critical for India’s sovereignty and economic growth that we design, manufacture, and adopt Indian chips in Indian products.”

Highlights
* Ajai Chowdhry, Founder, EPIC Foundation, urged India to transition from a services-driven economy to a product nation, leveraging its strong design talent.

* Sahasra Electronics’ milestone – unveiled India’s first “Make in India” LED Driver IC and Micro SD memory card, both entering mass production, with over 1 million chips shipped – a first for an Indian company.

* The milestone is a result of the M-SIPS scheme by MeitY, with origins in EPIC Foundation’s vision to develop systems and chips in India.

* Chowdhry called for government procurement support to replicate models like DARPA in the US, ensuring a complete ecosystem for indigenous.

This announcement marks a significant step forward in India’s semiconductor journey, reinforcing the country’s vision of building world-class products for domestic and global markets.