India eyeing 3nm chips and sovereign AI by 2032! Have we got our program right?

Ashwani Vaishnav, Minister for Railways, Information & Broadcasting and Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India, has said that India is now eyeing 3nm chip and sovereign AI as a critical national mission by 2032. Vaishnav said: "AI is the fifth industrial revolution. India must have sovereign capability." 

Vaishnav added that the semiconductor industry is expanding rapidly. Demand is driven by AI, leading to EVs, consumer electronics, and mobile phones. India has made a strong start. We expect to have a plan to manufacture 3nm chips by 2032. India will have the talent, design capability, and manufacturing ecosystem in place by 2032.

Commercial production of chips made in India have now started in 2026. Four semiconductor units have just begun. There are facilities like CG Semiconductor, Kaynes Semicon, Tata Electronics, and Micron. India has already approved 10 semiconductor manufacturing units so far.

In May 2025, Vaishnaw had inaugurated two new state-of-the-art design facilities of Renesas Electronics India, located in Noida and Bengaluru. This is India’s first design center to work on cutting-edge 3-nanometer chip design, a milestone that places India firmly in the global league of semiconductor innovation.

Is Renasas there at 3nm?
Renesas is designing and sampling 3nm semiconductor chips. That's a significant milestone in advanced technology development. However, Renesas DOES NOT YET have its own mass production capability for 3nm chips. The large foundries of the world lead at this very advanced node presently.

3nm chips can be designed by many companies, after meeting high technical requirements. and financial and ecosystem capabilities. Designing at 3nm does not mean you own a 3nm fab. They are managed by TSMC, Samsung, etc. You also need foundry-specific PDKs and advanced EDA tools. TSMC leads with N3 / N3E at 3nm, along with Samsung 3nm using GAA.

3nm design also requires FinFET/GAAFET understanding, advanced power integrity and signal integrity, complex timing closure, and multi-die and chiplet planning.

There are many folks designing at 3nm, besides Renesas. These include Apple, Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, MediaTek, etc. Companies without foundry relationships, small fabless outfits, startups, etc., cannot realistically design at 3nm.

3nm chips are going to be harder to develop, and not only smaller. It will require extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology, currently, a stronghold of ASML. Each machine costs over several hundred million dollars. It also needs a supply chain that goes miles deep. You also need photoresists and gases for alll of these. India, at least, needs to start working across all of these areas to get some sort of start.

Moving to 3nm also involves entry to high-performance compute domains, strategic alignment with advanced foundries, and long-term competitiveness. 3nm design is open in theory! In practise, only the elite semiconductor companies having massive resources can do that.

Next, yield is also very important here. Let's say, a fab can lose 5-10% of the yield at 28nm. This is just about manageable! The same loss of yield at 3nm can very well lead to disaster. Also, running a 3nm fab is not everyone's cup of tea. It will cost millions of dollars for India to even set up a 3nm fab in the first place! You simply cannot run a fab that does not break even in, say, three years!

Now, Renesas is not even mass producing 3nm chips at its own fabs. Leading advanced process nodes such as 3nm chip production in volume are handled by major foundries, such as TSMC and Samsung.

Renesas fast-tracked SDV innovation with R-Car Gen 5 SoC-based end-to-end multi-domain solution platform. Silicon samples, full evaluation boards, and RoX Whitebox SDK were available, and showcased at CES 2026.

However, one point is very noticeable: NOT ALL AUTOMOTIVE REQUIRES 3nm CHIPS! 

The automotive industry generally operates with a diverse mix of semiconductor technologies. These can range from older process nodes, such as 45nm or 90nm. Probably, 3nm automotive chips will be meant for expensive cars, not the ones that are driven by commoners. We shall see!

Semicon in 2032? Anyone??
By 2032, can anyone tell me where will the global semiconductor industry be in terms of nodes? My guess is probably, 1nm or less. One more wild guess, definitely, miles ahead of 3nm! And, who will be producing those chips? Probably, TSMC, and Samsung. Don't know, and cannot predict whether Intel is up for this race, yet!

Next, sovereign AI means 'owning the model'. This would probably need procuring around 10,000+ GPUs, and also securing the data. Who designs GPUs the most today? Nvidia! The vision of India is to design, train, and build AI models. To design, you will also be needing raw materials.

We cannot even have a 3nm dream, unless we have a weak, absent, developing, or lean / lenient semiconductor supply chain. That's something we first need to strengthen.

Please take a very close look at China! Very importantly, China currently controls 70-75% of refining the world's critical minerals. And, that's not going to change anytime soon. There are minerals, such as rare earths, cobalt, graphite, etc. You need these minerals for all sorts of things, example, EVs and batteries. 

I still haven't any clue how India is going to solve the critical materials and minerals challenge. We cannot talk about 3nm chips, and even sovereign AI, when there are hostile supply lines all around us. If India has to do well in the future, we cannot be left to be held as a dependant by any other country. That's what it needs to make clear at the G7 Minerals conference. 

The gap is probably in the execution of the various projects. India needs to deliver on all fronts -- be it water, power, raw materials, political stability. Else, we would be under estimating the advanced manufacturing of semiconductors in a big way. India definitely needs to get all of their programs right, and in the correct manner, to proceed.

India's stand
India is already a design powerhouse without any fabs. A leading-edge fab requires $15-25 billion per fab. Costs can go up as the technologies advance. There has to be continuous reinvestment every two-to-three years. You also need to have near-perfect yields to survive. Besides, you will also require massive water, power, and chemical infrastructure to operate.

For India to jump into this domain will mean more capital-intensive, high risk, and long time to returns. Design probably gives us a better RoI. India can do it, if it so wishes to have an advanced fab. 

Folks like Apple, Nvidia, etc., are making billions without even owning fabs. To grow in chip design, you need a combination of brains and tools. India has the designers, and it fits the demographic challenge.

India can also learn from China, where, China invested $100+ billion into fabs. It is currently strong at 28nm-14nm. It is still unable to get past advanced stages due to tooling. India should focus on chip design as it aligns with its talent base, high value at low risk, and build foundation for future manufacturing.