Krishnan said that India must move beyond executing global semiconductor programmes to creating its own IP, verification methodologies and product companies.
Delivering a Guest of Honour Address at ETElectronics World Design and Verification Summit, 2026, at Bengaluru, Ajay Krishnan, vice president (ESDM), Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM), said that verification is emerging as one of semiconductor industry’s biggest bottlenecks.
As increasingly complex chips combine CPUs, GPUs, AI accelerators, security modules, and third-party IP on a single system, it is making trust harder to establish, even as semiconductors become more valuable, according to Krishnan.
“Design gives us ambition, verification gives us reality” he said, arguing that programme delays arise from closing coverage, identifying corner cases, and debugging complex designs, rather than fabrication alone.
At the same time artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the verification workflow itself. The question isn’t whether AI belongs in verification, but which parts of workflow it should transform next.
Even as he appreciated Bengaluru’s emergence as a major semiconductor design and verification centre, he also pointed out that much of the ecosystem continues to work on design services and programmes originating elsewhere.
“The time has come… to create our own IP,” he said. “We’ve been playing this game for others for too long.”
Modern verification increasingly demands capabi;ities in areas such as UVM, formal methods and AI-assisted workflows, while academics have not always kept pace with industry requirements.
KDEM is seeking direct feedback from design and verification companies on challenges preventing them from building more products and intellectual property in India.
For Karnataka, the next phase should not be measured only by engineering headcount, but by creation of intellectual property, semiconductor products, and globally recognised design and verification methodologies according to Krishnan.
