Passage: Micron’s $800 million semiconductor plant followed by recent approval to Tata Group and CG Power for fabrication and Assembly, Testing and Packaging (ATP) plants with an investment of Rs 1,30,000 crore (and more in the pipeline) are the beginning of a transformational global supply chain shift centered around chip manufacturing in India. This will create a multiplier effect on talented and skilled workforce inside India.

It’s a matter of pride that almost one-third of the global semiconductor talent pool is Indian. However, the need for domestic semiconductor workforce is estimated to be around 3,00,000 by 2026. In addition, there is also a huge manpower requirement of almost six million in the electronics manufacturing sector which will be the largest beneficiary of the chip boom.

The current combined Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduate output from India’s higher education institutions is inadequate.

The growth is certainly going to come from the non-IITians orbit and the policy path ways of the Ministries of Electronics and IT and Education converge to present bountiful opportunities for industry and academia to work together.

This industry academia synergy was key to India’s software success story. Now a similar trifecta of government-industry-academia is needed to make this a winning semicon trio.

As a result of the chip boom, the requirement of workforce in the electronics manufacturing sector will: