India Sets 24-Month Target for Homegrown GPU Under Semiconductor Mission 2.0

India has given itself 24 months to produce an indigenous GPU, a target announced by S. Krishnan, secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in a November 4 interview reported by ETGovernment. The project sits under India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 and carries no named manufacturer, supplier, or builder. Twenty-four months is, in GPU development terms, a brisk schedule.

Krishnan was direct about the ambition and its pace. "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," he said.

How does the GPU fit India's wider AI plan?

The proposed GPU is one layer in a five-part stack that Krishnan says AI development requires: energy, accelerator chips, computing infrastructure and servers, AI models, and applications. Indian firms including VVDN, Kaynes, and Avalon already build servers. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has developed its Rudra server range for AI workloads, then transfers the technology to local manufacturers.

Krishnan frames the AI boom as a possible repeat of the Y2K transition, the episode that turned India's software services industry into a global force. "AI could create a similar opportunity, although the nature of the work will be different," he said. The stakes are considerable. India's IT-enabled services sector employs roughly 6 million people. A NITI Aayog paper estimates about 2 million existing jobs could become redundant as AI adoption spreads, while around 4 million new ones could emerge. Krishnan argues Indian companies can profit from helping businesses worldwide integrate AI, much as they did from software demand around 2000.

What manufacturing capacity already exists?

The country has attracted serious anchor partners. ASML is working with Tata Electronics to equip India's first commercial fabrication facility in Dholera, Gujarat. The planned fab will use 300mm wafers and is expected to eventually reach 50,000 wafers per month. Intel, separately, has announced a strategic partnership with Tata Group covering semiconductor manufacturing and packaging for the Indian market. The GPU target, by contrast, remains early-stage, with no industrial partner identified.

What are SHAKTI and VEGA?

Alongside the GPU effort, India wants to commercialize its homegrown SHAKTI and VEGA processors. Both are based on the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture, which lets local developers build processors without licensing proprietary CPU designs. These are CPU designs, distinct from the GPUs MeitY now targets.

This is not India's first attempt. In 2019, IIT Madras released a software development kit that let developers begin building applications before commercialization, covering processor classes from embedded devices and microcontrollers to workstations and servers. The effort continued with the Aries 3.0 development board, introduced in 2024, which runs C-DAC's VEGA ET301 processor. That 32-bit chip reaches 100MHz and carries 26KB of SRAM, aimed at sensors, wearables, and Internet of Things devices rather than desktops or graphics work.

The platforms are, slowly, moving past development boards. At the September 26 SEMICOM India event, the government showcased an autonomous water-cleaning robot built around SHAKTI, a digital telescope using VEGA, and another VEGA-based project for monitoring forest environments.

Is the incentive pipeline working?

MeitY says 24 companies supported under its Design-Linked Incentive (DLI) program have subsequently raised venture capital or other private investment. Their projects span microcontrollers, drone flight controllers, smart meter chips, and CCTV cameras. That figure is the strongest evidence that state support is converting into commercial traction.

The commercial backdrop is large. The India Electronics and Semiconductor Association values the country's semiconductor market at roughly $50 billion and projects it approaching $100 billion by 2030. The government wants local firms to capture more of that growth at home rather than depend on imported components. If the GPU lands on schedule, India will have moved from development boards to accelerators in under two years — a timeline that established GPU vendors would regard as, at minimum, optimistic.