Semiconductor consortium plans $3B manufacturing plant in Karnataka

International semiconductor consortium ISMC will invest $3 billion to set up a chip manufacturing plant in Karnataka, according to a release by the state government. ISMC is a joint venture between Abu Dhabi-based Next Orbit Ventures and Israel's Tower Semiconductor. Intel has announced plans to acquire the latter company.

Karnataka's investment department has announced that the planned factory will create 1,500 direct jobs and 10,000 indirect jobs in the state.

The national government has created a $10 billion incentive plan to promote semiconductor fabrication in India, and ISMC and Vedanta are the two largest organisations that have applied so far.

Vedanta recently announced advanced talks to build semiconductor plants in the western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, and the south Indian state of Telangana. In all, Vedanta has a planned investment outlay of $20 billion for its semiconductor push.

Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his IT ministers announced plans to push semiconductor manufacturing in India in light of global shortages due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. They believe India can become a key global chipmaker in an industry dominated by Taiwan.