Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his Independence Day address that India will operationalize 5–8 new semiconductor fabrication plants over the next 7–8 years, with 3 plants already exporting chips. Separately, Modi committed to operationalizing five new nuclear reactors by 2033, bringing India toward its 100 GW nuclear capacity target by 2047. The ₹1.27 lakh crore (~$15B USD) Semicon 2.0 programme approved in July covers end-to-end ecosystem development: fab design, chip design, packaging, materials, and talent.
India has mastered fast-breeder nuclear technology this year, a milestone Modi highlighted for fuel self-sufficiency. Nuclear capacity and domestic chip production are explicitly linked in Modi's strategy: data centre hyperscale growth (Microsoft, AWS, Google collectively committing >$50B in India) requires stable baseload power. The government has also begun dismantling decades-old state monopolies, allowing private companies into nuclear projects for the first time. Critical-mineral partnerships and secure electricity are positioned as interdependent.
For practitioners, India's dual-track push—accelerating semiconductor domestic production while expanding nuclear baseload—directly addresses the capex bottleneck for cloud infrastructure. The Semicon 2.0 programme's focus on design-to-packaging integration signals India's aim to climb the value chain beyond assembly. Nuclear capacity + fab footprint + foreign tech investment could position India as a credible alternate manufacturing hub outside TSMC-Samsung duopoly by 2035.