US chip major Qualcomm will invest $8.5 million (about Rs 56 crore) to expand its design initiatives in the country even as the government said it was looking to boost local electronics designing for driving innovation in the country.
The investment will go towards it ambitious ‘Design in India’ program to support firms working on rural technology, payment terminals and biometrics devices.
Qualcomm’s Asia Pacific & India SVP and president Jim Cathey notified that they will also engage in interoperability testing and can test any carrier’s requirement.
Cathey said that the company expects to see impressive success from startups in India next year.
The US company as a part of Qualcomm Design in India Challenge program, is also helping innovators to transform their ideas in its Innovation Lab in Bangalore to prototypes.
The initiative is on the backdrop of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government’s push to increase local design capabilities under the flagship Make in India initiative.The government is eyeing chip design to fuel innovation and become a central part to India’s ambitious Make in India program.
IT and Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that Government is facilitating design in India to stimulate innovation and chip design is expected to become integral part of India. Prasad also stressed upon the need to create Indian patents and industry support to innovators.
With a flagship Make in India program, Centre is now aggressively pushing for design in India to give impetus to IPR (Intellectual Proprietary Rights) creation with the country.
He said that focus should be given to rural India, and how chip innovation can enable Aadhaar platform for identification purposes. Prasad also said that the industry should work to make digital payments system flawless and the IT department is facilitating human resource needed to support electronics sector.
Telecom secretary JS Deepak said that time has come to undertake more R&D by smaller companies to adept to quick technological changes to give a fillip to hardware manufacturing in India. Nasscom president R Chandrashekhar said that the global Internet of Things (IoT) revenue is expected to grow to $3 trillion by 2020 that include India’s $9 billion pie. Industrial IoT is likely to contribute 55 per cent and the rest 45 per cent would be from consumer IoT in India. .
By Baishakhi Dutta
