$700 million is a <i>really</i> cheap semiconductor plant - I wonder what node size that fab was? Maybe they got an estimate on how much a competitve semi plant really costs - and its in the tens of billions of US$.
So, they got $200M and only then realized that:
Yet as the company dug into the requirements—extreme-UV lithography, sub-10 nm process nodes, global supply-chain partnerships—it realized that building a modern fab is an order of magnitude more complex than spinning up a new data center.
> Zoho was in talks with the Department of Electronics & IT under India’s Semiconductor Mission, and reports reveal that they had set aside some $200 million for a pilot 28 nm wafer line in Tamil Nadu.<p>My guess is 28nm is already an aging node, and by the time any fab based on it becomes operational, the technology will be even more obsolete. It’s hard to predict what the market will look like then. You can't expect a private company to pour billions into a dicey market.<p>This is a case where free-market capitalism doesn’t work. You really want a government pitching tens of billions of dollars to get to the cutting edge fast, not expecting companies to foot the bill and just dangle a few incentives.<p>Frankly, for India, the entire semiconductor ambition feels like putting the cart before the horse. It won't create jobs, most value will be captured by fab owners. The smarter approach would be top-down: start with component assembly, then build up CNC machining, injection molding, and other foundational industries that can fill in the gap for components. Only after that should we talk about high-value semiconductor manufacturing.<p>India lacks even the most basic manufacturing. We import stuff like lighters, toys, and basic electronics. Why do we want to make the giant leap to semiconductors?<p>Unfortunately, Indian policymakers are more interested in optics than in long-term industrial planning.
The permanent bureaucracy is a hangman's noose around the country's neck. They have a billion ways of derailing projects with political and public support if they don't like it. So many people have talked about their conversations with these gatekeepers where they openly threaten that the politician will be gone in the next election but they will remain. So you don't have a choice but to deal with them.<p>The current BJP government in the centre is probably the most powerful one in the history of modern India as far as political power is concerned. But look at the statements the Finance Minister makes: [1]<p>> "The question should be how much it takes for me to convince the ministry and the boards. It is not so much about the PM. The PM was very clear that he wanted to do something. It was for the ministry to reach a comfort level and then proceed with the proposal,"<p>They are trying to "convince" the bureaucracy instead of ordering them to get on with the program. No wonder these projects do not succeed.<p>This scourge of bureaucracy extends to wherever the government has a vice-like grip on a particular sector (like banking). Here is a case of a non-profit that digitizes manuscripts (eGangotri) struggling to access the grant it has received from the government: [2]<p>> As most patrons know Ministry of Education had most kindly chosen us for a IKS grant but with a very limiting condition and in my opinion over-bureaucracy to only allow ICICI Bank as the Chosen Partner and this has turned a nightmare for us.<p>India succeeds in services because most of the ten thousand-odd permissions you require to set up a manufacturing unit do not apply. You try to start a physical plant and see how many people you have to pay off before you can succeed.<p>The legal system is so slow that the government's own projects can be blocked by filing nuisance cases in random courts and tribunals. Private businesses have no hope in hell.<p>Without police reform, judicial reform and bureaucratic reform, we will keep chugging along. Always underachieving.<p>[1] "PM quickly got behind tax cut, bureaucrats took convincing: Finance Minister" <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/budget/story/union-budget-nirmala-sitharaman-tax-reforms-pm-modi-support-income-tax-cuts-2673572-2025-02-02" rel="nofollow">https://www.indiatoday.in/budget/story/union-budget-nirmala-...</a><p>[2] Frivolous and Presumptuous Banking Services of ICICI Sec-50 <a href="https://egangotri.org/2024/12/04/frivolous-and-presumptuous-banking-services-of-icici-sec-50/" rel="nofollow">https://egangotri.org/2024/12/04/frivolous-and-presumptuous-...</a>
> “we export most of our technology talent.” Retaining that talent, he insisted, will require homegrown, ambitious deep-tech projects<p>India's elites incl. the ones HN folks are likely to run into are products of the old colonial education system - one that ensures that only the micro-minority of English-speakers (~5%) are able to ever get any decent level of higher education. People don't realize that there's very little "pull" for Indians who escape this system and "win" the game they're playing viz. to climb the greasy-poles of the (Pan-)Anglosphere.<p>It strikes me that quite a bit of the caste-system narrative is basically a coded/symbolic version of what the neo-colonial system currently has in place. Ironically, going by the reports of East-India Company, the hated pre-British "Hindu" India seems to have been a far more equitable place.
India should at least start off by building aesthetically sound products that people require globally - not just functional products. Just like China did.<p>Vedanta-Foxconn, Adani-Tower, and now Zoho all collapsed because of questions around market viability. Sure, India has a large domestic market, but that is not reason enough for business consumers to buy Indian, nor is it a large enough market on its own. Semiconductor markets require global-scale markets, something the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese were able to break into with years of copying Western aesthetics.<p>India thinks it can be the market leader for the developing world's semiconductor supply, but when it comes to chips, the whole package counts, not just bare functionality. With all of the world's electronics manufacturing in either China-Japan-Korea, and others in Europe, India has a very limited consumer base for chips to be sold to.