India has drawn close to Rs 1 lakh crore in investment commitments under Semicon 2.0, the government’s second-phase semiconductor policy, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said on September 17 at SEMICON India 2026 in New Delhi.
Vaishnaw said the commitments, worth roughly $11-12 billion, have come from companies working across capital equipment, materials, specialty gases and advanced packaging since Semicon 2.0’s approval. The figure is based on the minister’s own discussions with these companies, some of which have not yet made their investment plans public.
The announcement matters because it puts a number on how quickly global and domestic chip-industry players are responding to India’s newest semiconductor push, barely two months after the scheme was formally cleared. It also comes on a day when one of the world’s largest semiconductor equipment makers, Applied Materials, separately unveiled its own multi-billion-dollar India plan at the same event.
What happened
SEMICON India 2026, themed “Silicon to Systems: Building the Ecosystem,” was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. Speaking at the event, Vaishnaw laid out both the scale of interest Semicon 2.0 has attracted so far and the broader roadmap for the scheme, which is meant to move India beyond isolated chip-fab announcements toward a fuller semiconductor ecosystem covering design, materials, equipment, packaging, research and talent.
“Semicon 1.0 was all about setting the foundation and making sure that we learned to walk. Semiconductor 2.0 is more about getting the ecosystem in place,” Vaishnaw said.
How much money is involved
The Rs 1 lakh crore figure Vaishnaw cited refers to investment commitments the government says it has received from industry players since Semicon 2.0 was announced, not to the scheme’s own budget outlay, which is a separate number.
The Union Cabinet approved Semicon 2.0 on July 15, 2026, with a total budget outlay of Rs 1,27,500 crore, according to an official release from the Press Information Bureau and the Prime Minister’s Office. This is commonly rounded to about Rs 1.27 lakh crore; some media reports have rounded the figure to Rs 1.28 lakh crore, though the government’s own release specifies Rs 1,27,500 crore. Notifications covering all six pillars of the scheme were issued on August 31, 2026.
Separately, at the same event, US-based Applied Materials announced it would invest $5 billion (roughly Rs 44,000-45,000 crore at current exchange rates) in India over the next decade, under what it called “Applied Materials India Vision 2035.” The plan includes a roughly 140-acre (about 57-hectare) advanced semiconductor research park, a tenfold expansion of the company’s India-based supply chain capacity, and a doubling of its India R&D workforce by 2035.
“Today we are announcing Applied Materials India Vision 2035: US $5 billion investment for the next decade to accelerate and integrate India’s semiconductor [ecosystem into global value chains],” said Prabhu Raja, president of the Semiconductor Products Group at Applied Materials, at the event.
It is not clear from available disclosures whether the Applied Materials commitment is counted within Vaishnaw’s Rs 1 lakh crore figure or sits alongside it, since the minister’s number was described as cumulative commitments gathered through his own conversations with industry rather than a itemised list of named companies.
What Semicon 2.0 covers
According to the government, Semicon 2.0 is structured around six pillars covering the full semiconductor value chain: strengthening chip design, building out equipment and raw materials capability (including capital equipment, chemicals and specialty gases), adding new fabrication units, scaling advanced packaging, funding applied research and development, and large-scale talent creation.
Under the scheme, eligible semiconductor startups and MSMEs can receive seed funding of up to Rs 15 crore, along with equity co-investment support for companies already backed by venture capital or private equity investors. Deployment-linked incentives will also be available for semiconductor IPs, chips and systems-on-chip launched after the scheme was announced.
On the manufacturing side, silicon wafer fabs with an investment of at least Rs 20,000 crore will qualify for fiscal support of up to 40% of eligible capital expenditure, with compound semiconductor, photonics, sensor and discrete-component fabs also eligible. Advanced packaging projects — including 2.5D/3D packaging, wafer-level chip-scale packaging and heterogeneous integration — will get similar support, as will R&D facilities for semiconductor equipment, raw materials and testing infrastructure.
Vaishnaw said the government does not plan to adopt a revenue-sharing model similar to the US CHIPS Act, arguing that India’s semiconductor industry is still at an earlier stage of development and that the policy has instead been tailored to domestic conditions. He pointed to Japan’s experience of rebuilding its chip-manufacturing capabilities after ceding leadership to other countries as a reference point for India’s own long-term approach.
On the talent front, Vaishnaw said the government intends to expand chip-design coursework currently taught at 400 universities under Semicon 1.0, with a goal of training at least 20% of chip-design students in complex systems design. He separately said the scheme aims to build up a pool of about one lakh skilled technicians and factory-floor professionals for India’s semiconductor facilities and the wider global talent market.
On chip design specifically, Vaishnaw said the government will target at least 200 startups and companies designing chips in India under Semicon 2.0, up from the more than 105 startups that attempted chip design under the first phase of the mission, of which about 20 went on to secure venture capital funding worth around Rs 800 crore, according to the minister.
Building on Semicon 1.0
The original India Semiconductor Mission, or Semicon 1.0, was approved in December 2021 with an outlay of Rs 76,000 crore. According to the PIB release, 12 semiconductor manufacturing units have been approved under the mission so far, with a cumulative investment of more than Rs 1.64 lakh crore across six states — Gujarat, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. These include a silicon fab, a silicon carbide fab, an integrated gallium nitride micro-LED display fab, and nine packaging units aimed at sectors such as consumer appliances, automobiles, power electronics, telecommunications and aerospace.
Of the approved projects, three — Micron, Kaynes and CG Semi — have started commercial production, with one more expected to begin in 2026, the government said. On the design side, 24 semiconductor design projects from startups and MSMEs have been approved for financial support, and 105 startups and MSMEs have been given access to industry-standard electronic design automation tools.
What comes next
For now, the Rs 1 lakh crore figure represents commitments and stated intentions from industry rather than capital that has already been deployed, and Vaishnaw’s own framing made clear that some of it is based on private conversations rather than public disclosures. How much of that eventually converts into approved projects, signed agreements and operational facilities will likely become clearer as more companies — following Applied Materials’ lead — make formal announcements in the months ahead.
Domestic demand is one reason the government is pushing hard on the manufacturing and equipment side of the value chain. According to government estimates cited by Reuters, India’s semiconductor consumption is projected to reach as much as $110 billion by 2030, up from an estimated $45-50 billion in 2025, even as the bulk of that demand continues to be met through imports.
