NXP plans to invest more than 1 billion dollars (more than 900 million euros) in India to double existing R&D activities there. CEO Kurt Sievers was able to report this during a conference near New Delhi.
Sievers particularly emphasized that these research funds would go to areas where NXP is already working with local industries, such as the automotive sector. NXP already has four semiconductor design centers in India, employing about 3,000 people.
India investing heavily
India is keen to expand its capacity to produce chips and has allocated a 10 billion dollars (more than 9 billion euros) stimulus package to boost its semiconductor industry. In these uncertain times, the country hopes to be able to compete with chip superpower Taiwan eventually (and put very pessimistically, offer an alternative). By 2026, the Indian semiconductor market should be worth 63 billion dollars, is the aim.
Tech giants like Nvidia and AMD have also gained a firmer foothold in India, according to Reuters, which recorded NXP CEO Sievers’ statement at the local edition of Semicon, a trade show for semiconductor manufacturers, their customers, adjacent industries and the entire supply chain.
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Keeping talent in-house
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized at the event that 20 percent of the world’s semiconductor design talent comes from India. Modi would like to see those not all leave for other countries. The country would prepare some 85,000 technicians and engineers to jumpstart the local industry further. Earlier this year, India approved the construction of three semiconductor plants worth 15 billion dollars, including projects by Tata Group and CG Power.
Other notable foreign investors include U.S. memory chip maker Micron, whose 2.7 billion dollar test and packaging unit in Gujarat is expected to create 5,000 jobs. Applied Materials, another American company, is to set up a 400 million dollar engineering center in India.
Remarkable statement
Sievers’ statement is remarkable because as recently as July, NXP had to swallow down its most dramatic sales decline in four years. The company also predicted underwhelming sales for the third quarter.
XP president and CEO Kurt Sievers called the period a “cyclical trough” after which “sequential growth” should take place. “We continue to manage what we have control over, allowing NXP to achieve resilient profitability and earnings in a challenging demand environment.”
In the longer term, NXP technology will increasingly power “Software-Defined Vehicles,” where vehicles monitor and assist their drivers through a variety of sensors and telemetry.
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