AMD To Invest $400m In India Over Five Years

The Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has received some welcome news as it seeks to ramp up its efforts to turn the country into a chip manufacturing hub.

US chipmaker AMD announced its plan to invest approximately $400 million over the next five years to expand research, development and engineering operations in India.

AMD’s announcement was made by its Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster at an annual semiconductor conference that began Friday in Gujarat, India, which is the home state of PM Modi.

Chip hub

The $400m investment over the next five years will include a new AMD campus in Bangalore, Karnataka that will serve as the company’s largest design centre, as well as the addition of approximately 3,000 new engineering roles by the end of 2028.

The new AMD campus is expected to open before the end of 2023 and will feature extensive lab space, state-of-the-art collaboration tools and seating configurations designed to foster teamwork, said the US chipmaker.

The investment is supported by the various policy initiatives of the Government of India focused on the semiconductor industry.

In May this year, the Indian government had renewed its attempt to attract manufacturers to relocate their chip production facilities in India, as previously announced projects were taking too long to get off the ground.

New Delhi had reopened the application process for $10 billion in incentives and assistance that it had first announced in December 2021, which is intended to encourage local chip-making.

So far Applied Materials in June agreed to set up an engineering centre, and Micron announced a $825 million investment in a semiconductor testing and packaging unit in Gujarat.

India’s move comes as some tech manufacturers look away from China as their manufacturing hub of choice, and begin to explore other countries including India, South Korea and Vietnam for example.

AMD India

AMD noted that it has been an active part of the semiconductor ecosystem in India since 2001 when the company’s first site was established in New Delhi.

It already has more than 6,500 employees in the country.

The new 500,000-square-foot Bangalore campus will increase the AMD office footprint to 10 total locations across these cities: Bangalore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

“I welcome AMD’s decision to set up its largest R&D design center in India and expansion of the India-AMD partnership,” said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

“It will certainly play an important role in building a world class semiconductor design and innovation ecosystem,” said Chandrasekhar. “It will also provide tremendous opportunities for our large pool of highly skilled semiconductor engineers and researchers and will catalyse PM Narendra Modi’s vision of India becoming a global talent hub.”

“From a handful of employees in 2001 to more than 6,500 employees today, AMD has grown its India footprint based on the strong foundation established by our local leadership and the highly skilled talent pool,” added Mark Papermaster, executive VP and chief technology officer at AMD.

“AMD has one of the industry’s broadest product portfolios fueled by growth in artificial intelligence, networking and 6G communications, and our India teams will continue to play a pivotal role in delivering the high-performance and adaptive solutions that support AMD customers worldwide,” said Papermaster. “By further investing and expanding our presence in Bangalore, we are committed to driving innovation in India to support the India Semiconductor Mission.”

Unlike its top rival Intel, AMD does not undertake its manufacturing Instead it outsources the production of chips it designs to third-party manufacturers such as Taiwan’s TSMC.