by Munsif Vengatil
GANDHINAGAR, India (Reuters) – US chip maker Advanced Micro Devices said on Friday it would invest about $400 million in India over the next five years and build its largest design center in the tech hub of Bengaluru.
AMD was announced by its chief technology officer Mark Papermaster at an annual semiconductor conference that began on Friday in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat. Other speakers at the keynote event include Foxconn Chairman Young Liu and Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra.
Despite being a late entrant, the Modi government is investing in India’s emerging chip sector to establish its credentials as a chip manufacturing hub.
AMD said it will open its new design center campus in Bengaluru by the end of this year and create 3,000 new engineering roles within five years.
“Our India teams will continue to play a critical role in providing high-performance and adaptive solutions that support AMD customers around the world,” Papermaster said.
The new 500,000 sq ft (55,555 sq yd) campus will increase AMD’s office count in India to 10 locations. It already has over 6,500 employees in the country.
AMD chips are used in a wide range of devices, from personal computers to data centers. The Santa Clara, California-based firm is also working on an artificial intelligence chip that would rival market leader Nvidia Corp.
Unlike its top rival Intel, AMD outsources production of its designed chips to third-party manufacturers such as Taiwan’s TSMC.
TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung are among the few chip makers globally that have mastered cutting-edge chip manufacturing, a technology that many countries are now seeking to weather supply chain shocks, such as the pandemic encountered during.
India unveiled a $10 billion stimulus program for the chip sector in 2021, but the plan has flopped as no company has so far managed to win approval to set up the fabrication plants that are the centerpiece of Modi’s ambitions.
Other investments in India include a multi-year $400 million plan by US chip equipment maker Applied Materials to set up an engineering center in June, and an $825 million investment by chip maker Micron in a semiconductor test and packaging unit in Gujarat.
(Reporting by Munsif Vengatil in Gandhinagar, Gujarat; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Sonali Paul)
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