India has long been an important yet understated contributor to the global semiconductor ecosystem. Indian engineers constitute nearly 20% of the worldwide integrated circuit design workforce, with over 125,000 professionals employed across design centres to support leading companies, such as Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD. Cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad have emerged as prominent global hubs for fabless chip design, hosting numerous semiconductor Global Capability Centres (GCCs) and a burgeoning start-up ecosystem supported by the government’s Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme.However, India has traditionally focused more on design than on manufacturing. With the introduction of the $10-billion Semicon India Programme and…