Indian firms are thus in a position to help future thought leaders design and fabricate intelligent and wiser electronic products using chips as the wise and intelligent core brain. Chips acting as the brain execute tasks using other components of the circuit. They use power efficiently and bring comfort to our lives through a variety of consumer products.
By Dharmendra Tewari
Author is a PIB Officer. Views expressed are personal.
In the AI era, a silent electronic revolution is taking place. Do you feel it too? I did, because we journalists were shown visual evidence of it and had to believe it after experiencing it.
Held in the national capital from September 17 to 19, Semicon 2026 made us aware of it. We realised that Made in India chips have started silently powering this revolution. We in the media saw that Indians are working hard to realise a Big Indian SuperChip Dream. We could sense the dream in researchers, established industry players, young minds and policymakers — all united in their efforts. For you to believe in this Big AI Smart SuperChip dream, you must understand that we already have a very strong foundation. You will have to not just read but experience this article to feel that foundation, powered by our Made in India, Bharatiya chips.
Priced between Rs. 100 and Rs. 1,500, these chips are used in electronic goods. They help us build small kitchen mixers, micro-drills and other home appliances. These magical chips enable rotation without a traditional motor. Similarly, we Indians are already making AI-smart devices that alert passengers and drivers if they feel drowsy. These wonder chips help us design monitoring devices. The AI SuperChips not only sense but also intelligently fix inefficiencies in various systems using AI-wise electronics. Be it healthcare systems or educational tools, these SuperChips have the potential to power the electronic revolution through Bharatiya chips. I had to believe in the silent revolution simply because I saw it in the exhibition. After all, seeing is believing.
Therefore, I am sharing the exhibition experience with those who missed it. Please visualise it. As you read, power your imagination to visualise the dream. I visited many stalls and interacted with representatives, asking probing questions with journalistic acumen. My effort is to give you a TV-like experience of the exhibition — to help you immerse in the dream and play a key role in realising it. The story is very simple. The government is laying the foundation; the nation has to realise the dream. The foundations are Bharatiya chips and Superwise AI Smart Mother Chips. If we can do that, we will become a top player in the AI-smart world of electronics.
We are already taping out Bharatiya chips and exporting them in the global market. The foundation is well laid. It is high time we build this dream by making India a top global factory of Wiser Mother Chips capable of serving clients from various apps we use in daily life. Given our proven software skills and recent chip designing and fabrication initiatives, it is not that difficult. I am highlighting six main stalls in this article due to space constraints. The first three belonged to Indian companies making Bharatiya chips. One was an Indian company that helps designers design chips. Neel, a representative from such a firm, told us, “If you have ideas, we can hard-code your idea into an executable task in a chip.” It helps technopreneurs, thought leaders and young minds realise products they visualise.
Indian firms are thus in a position to help future thought leaders design and fabricate intelligent and wiser electronic products using chips as the wise and intelligent core brain. Chips acting as the brain execute tasks using other components of the circuit. They use power efficiently and bring comfort to our lives through a variety of consumer products. Our visit to the Semicon exhibition ended with the discovery of a Mother SuperChip being designed by India to achieve a technologically sovereign advanced future for generations to come. It is not just informationally intelligent but also naturally wise. We need to develop it on our own to meet the global supercomputing needs of a future electronic market that is fast becoming AI-smart.
Our cars and buses are no longer just mechanical vehicles; they are increasingly loaded with comfort electronics. Given the vast market, we Indians cannot remain silent consumers. We have to build AI Smart SuperChip servers in India and cater to global demand. In 1987, the USA denied us the latest supercomputing technology. Recently, during increased demand, we felt the heat of chip shortages. The chip supply chain is currently dominated by a few nations, including China. Strategically, we need Wiser SuperChips. They are important from a national security point of view. We need to become sovereign. We must own a wise as well as intelligent Mother Chip in the age of information. Hence, Wise SuperChips are being built in India by C-DAC since the days when China tightened supplies of commercial chips used in laptops, PCs and mobiles.
Scientists at the C-DAC stall showed journalists the dream realisation roadmap. It was AUM, an indigenous 96-core high-performance computing processor. We were told by C-DAC scientists that AUM is currently in advanced stages of development. It was an eye-opener to see the achievements we have made in India in just five years. India Semiconductor Mission, ISM 1.0, which pushed chip progress, was launched in December 2021. Ms. Sunita Verma, a senior scientist from MeitY, told us that AUM is built using the Arm Neoverse V2 architecture. AUM is being fabricated on a 5nm process node and can efficiently target massive parallel workloads like AI, machine learning and scientific simulations.
Unlike proprietary hyperscaler chips available only via cloud rental, AUM will be accessible hardware for physical sovereign infrastructure when launched. Scientists in the C-DAC stall also showed us Param Rudra, an Indian server eagerly waiting for AUM as its Mother Chip. We can deem it a Wise SuperChip that processes service requests wisely, not just fast. All other components of Rudra are already Made in India, including its multiple memory chips. Once AUM tapes out, India will be in a position to roll out the dream realisation plan for the masses. We are already a “Create in India, Create for the World” focused nation. We have seen this as an opportunity, thanks to the digital explosion of creativity we witness on social media today. So the timing of the AUM launch is perfect.
The definitive edge of AUM is its triple-memory design. It bypasses the massive power consumption of traditional x86 global chips like Intel Xeon or AMD EPYC, while retaining raw competitive compute efficiency. It also gives us Indians our digital sovereignty. Once sovereign in the digital space with democratic AI, we can shift focus to creative content creation, backed by top-level institutional research in various disciplines. With the SuperChip dream realised, we can hope to become an AI Jagat Guru nation again, riding the wave of the electronic revolution. If supercomputing chips become wise using AI information, we can offer AI Smart Computing to our youth and make creative content for the world at a competitive price. It will not just create jobs but also build a creator economy besides entrepreneurial and job potential in electronics.
Given India’s storytelling expertise since time immemorial, affordable SuperChips will give us an edge in the AI era in the social media content market. It will be a double jackpot. Let us make our SuperChips wiser with indigenous AI at an affordable price. Global electronic companies are waiting for such wise SuperChips as well as quantum computing technology to meet the information hunger of a reel-watching nation and the globe. For this to happen and to sustain it, we must have total control over the raw material needed in the semiconductor industry. This job is being taken care of by industry, young minds and new-age entrepreneurs backed by government policies. The supply chain for chips includes transition metals like hafnium. Its oxides and carbides are used in chips. India has reserves of hafnium, making it a self-reliant raw material for crucial memory chips.
The next stall was C-MET, the Centre for Materials for Electronic Technology. Director General Dr. R. Rateesh gave me a small piece of hafnium. He told me it is as precious in the world of chips as gold, silver and platinum are in our macro world. It costs more than Rs. 5 lakh for a very small quantity. He added that if we focus on the nanoscopic purity of hafnium that we already have, it will give us a clear edge in ensuring chip material supply chain security. We also saw an Indian firm dealing in chemicals and metallurgy taking keen interest in hafnium. I came to know about photoresist technology at the C-MET stall. It is an important supply chain variable. Photoresist is a light-sensitive organic material or resin used to transfer circuit patterns onto a substrate, a silicon wafer, thus playing a crucial role during photolithography and microfabrication of chips.
In the AI era, users with AI smartphones will ask many questions of AI servers. We Indians will be able to deliver quality services to the world only if we make wiser and more intelligent AI server chips in India. They will act as the core brain for electronic goods in the market and those being imagined by thought leaders for the next generation. Indian firms are already in fabrication mode. As we are not only making but also exporting Made in India chips, our big dream can be realised if we ignite the entrepreneurial spirit and resolve to work for fast, accurate, precise and intelligent AI Mother Chips.
Good luck, India! Be a part of this dream. Help the government realise the dream and create the SuperChip Revolution in the AI era.
