BARCELONA : India should boost the amount of its $10 billion financial incentive scheme to attract semiconductor manufacturing majors, said Rahul Patel, general manager of Qualcomm Technologies’ connectivity, broadband and networks group.
Patel believes India is competing against developed nations such as the US, Europe, Japan and China, which offer incentives worth tens of billions of dollars.
“India is competing against developed nations. Companies (fabs) are very capitalist minded, they will look for the best financial result, the size and longevity of the incentives and how competitive they are against the US, China, Europe, Japan, South Korea,” he said.
“A stimulus of $10 billion is not the same as $40-50 billion. I’m sure it’s not a matter of an incapable India, but it will be a matter of where the priorities are spent.”
He noted that India did have a geopolitical advantage globally as companies sought to diversify away from China, even as the South Asian nation has a similar policy to other countries in possessing semiconductor manufacturing capacity. Assembly, testing, marking and packaging or ATMP units were good starting points but getting the semiconductor beans was critical, Patel said.
“Semiconductors are the new oil,” he said.
Qualcomm, as a fabless chip design company, increased investments in India every year and had the world’s second largest research and development center in the country. The senior executive said Qualcomm was involved in enabling India’s electronics and manufacturing ecosystem as it is a “very strategic” market for the company.
“Qualcomm builds the latest Wi-Fi elements from Chennai, modem products from Bangalore and Hyderabad, designs processing engines, builds products that go into IoT markets from India, regardless of incentives. This size of talent pool is not available outside India,” he added.
Patel added that Qualcomm has started discussions with Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea to bring Wi-Fi 7, the latest standard in Wi-Fi technology, even as Wi-Fi 6-based devices and equipment have just started rolling out for deployment into networks. . . “I will not be surprised in 2025, you will see Wi-Fi 7 in India,” he said.
He added that the company is partnering with local manufacturers such as VVDN, HFCL and DIxon Technologies to strengthen manufacturing capabilities.
The company, which competes with Mediatek as a supplier to mobile phone manufacturers in the Indian market, is looking to become the first mover in bringing AI-enabled features to the chipsets on devices.
With AI capability already present in the cloud, the hybrid AI processing will lead to advanced experiences for consumers. “The Qualcomm AI hub has more than 80 open source models that can be used by developers to build an edge AI experience,” he added.
He added AI at the edge, for example inside the smartphone, can offer use cases of enormous consumer value, such as live translation on call, available in Samsung Galaxy S24.
Within electronics of home use, such as CCTV cameras, AI can enable post-processing and flag only when, for example, an intruder comes in front of the camera in any place, or when the AI hears a voice that was not heard inside. the premises in the past. “These are essential services that can be used immediately,” he said.
The reporter is in Barcelona to cover the Mobile World Congress at the invitation of Xiaomi.
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Published: 28 Feb 2024, 20:32 IST