Intel’s talent in India is essential to all of its critical programs, including CPUs, GPUs, artificial intelligence, accelerators, and FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays), said its Executive Vice President and General Manager for the Data Center and AI Group Sandra Rivera. Speaking at a media roundtable in Bengaluru, Rivera said that India is at a critical juncture in the company’s semiconductor ambitions, as it seeks to attract manufacturing capabilities to the country.
For Intel, India is a huge market. The number of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) graduates produced in Indian universities, the workforce, the growth of the middle class, the knowledge workers, all position the country as a wonderful growth market and opportunity, said Rivera, and so, there is absolutely no reason why India cannot be a technology leader and a manufacturing leader in the world.
Intel sees an opportunity in the build-up of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), original design manufacturing (ODM) ecosystem, and the electronics manufacturing industry in India. Its partners also see an opportunity in the country.
The multinational corporation and technology company has so far invested $9 billion in India. According to Rivera, progress in India with regard to technology has been faster than in countries such as Israel and the US, as the country has learned from the experiences of more mature markets and skipped over generations of technology that is not at the leading edge.
