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India targets creating homegrown GPUs within 2 years and plans to commercialize indigenous SHAKTI and VEGA processors
India targets a homegrown GPU within 24 months as it expands its chip industry and AI ambitions
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India wants to develop its own graphics processing unit (GPU) within the next two years as the country steps up efforts to build a domestic semiconductor industry and reduce its dependence on foreign chip suppliers, reports ETGovernment. The target was outlined by S.Krishnan, secretary of India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in a November 4 interview. "Under India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, we intend to target the development of an indigenous GPU chip. We should have a GPU chip of our own. This will not happen overnight. It is a project that will require approximately 24 months, and we intend to work towards that objective," Krishnan said.
The proposed GPU is part of a wider plan to establish an Indian hardware and software ecosystem, with Krishnan describing five layers needed to support AI development. These include: energy, accelerator chips, computing infrastructure and servers, AI models and applications. Indian companies such as VVDN, Kaynes and Avalon are already manufacturing servers, while the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has developed its Rudra server range, whose systems are designed to support AI workloads, after which the government transfers the technology to local manufacturers. Krishnan also sees AI as a potential repeat of the opportunity India's IT industry experienced during the Y2K (the year 2000 bug) transition. "AI could create a similar opportunity, although the nature of the work will be different," he said.
The comparison is big for a country whose IT-enabled service sector employs about 6 million people. A NITI Aayog paper estimates that roughly two million existing jobs could become redundant as AI adoption changes the industry, but around 4 million more jobs could emerge. Krishnan argues that Indian companies could benefit from helping businesses worldwide integrate into their AI operations, just as they benefited from the demand for software services around the turn of the century.
The country has already attracted major interest with ASML, partnering with Tata Electronics to equip India's first commercial semiconductor fabrication facility in Dholera, Gujarat. The planned facility is expected to use 300mm wafers and eventually reach a capacity of 50,000 wafers per month. Intel also announced a strategic partnership with Tata Group covering semiconductor manufacturing and packaging for the Indian market. However, the proposed GPU remains an early-stage target. Krishnan did not identify a manufacturer, chip supplier, or builder for the project. India is also looking to bring its own homegrown SHAKTI and VEGA processors to commercial markets. Both are based on the open-source RISC-V architecture, allowing local developers to build processors without relying on proprietary CPU designs. Notably, these are CPU designs, separate from the GPUs now being targeted by MeitY.
That said, it is not the first time India has attempted to build its own GPU production unit. In 2019, India's IT Madras released a software development kit that allowed developers to begin building applications before the processors were commercialized. The project included several processor classes aimed at different markets, from embedded devices and micro-controllers to workstations and server workloads. The effort has continued since then, with the Aries 3.0 development board, which uses the C-DAC’s VEGA ET301 processor, being introduced in 2024. The 32-bit chip runs up to 100MHz and includes 26KB of SRAM and is intended for relatively simple applications such as sensors, wearables, and Internet of Things devices, rather than desktop PCs or graphics-intensive workloads.
However, there are signs that the SHAKTI and VEGA platforms are nodding beyond development boards and into p