India Must Move From 'Engineered' to 'Invent in India' in Semiconductors: Infosys SVP
India is entering a "once-in-a-generation demand window" in the semiconductor industry and needs to move beyond engineering services towards creating and owning complete technology products, Infosys Senior Vice President Vikram Meghal said on Friday.
Addressing delegates at SEMICON India 2026, Meghal said the conventional semiconductor value chain is undergoing a major transformation, driven by artificial intelligence, geopolitical pressures on supply chains and the industry's move from Moore's Law towards system-level scaling.
"AI data centre spend is projected to reach USD 6.7 trillion in the next few years, and 50 per cent of that spend is going to be compute, memory, and networking chips," Meghal said, adding that the industry is seeing a shift where the workload is now driving how chips are designed, rather than the chip driving the workload.
Three semiconductor opportunities for India
Meghal outlined three key demand areas for the country: Made for India, Engineered in India and Invent in India.
Under the Made for India segment, he noted that localisation in mobile phone manufacturing has already started. However, he said the opportunity could grow several times over the next four to five years, with domestic content currently standing at just 23 per cent.
Discussing Engineered in India, Meghal said engineering research and development (ER&D) expenditure is expected to rise 1.8 times from current levels in the coming years. He said India's existing ability to deliver engineering services at scale provides a foundation for this growth.
However, he highlighted Invent in India as the area with the greatest potential for value creation. According to Meghal, the global market for custom chips is expected to expand significantly as companies increasingly develop application-specific silicon.
"So far, we have just been capturing the engineered-in-India value. Now, there is a potential for global products to capture the innovation value and start looking at inventing in India itself. That's really where we will do justice to the decades of investment that we have done in building this ecosystem," he said.
Focus on complete technology stack
Meghal called on the semiconductor industry to adopt what he described as "strategic patience" and make long-term investments in the sector.
He also urged companies to develop a stronger product-oriented approach, give greater attention to regulatory compliance and aim to control the complete technology stack instead of concentrating only on semiconductor silicon.
His comments come as India's semiconductor ecosystem expands its focus from manufacturing and engineering capabilities towards product development, innovation and greater participation in the global chip value chain.
